How could I help going when I knew of it? I did not tell you--I did not mean you to know; but it was impossible to stay away," cried the widow, perceiving her son"s impatience while she explained herself, and growing confused in consequence, "when I heard what was going on. Oh, Arthur dear, don"t look so disturbed; they know better than you imagine--they appreciate you, though they have not the way of showing it. I have seen things happen so differently, that I know the value of such friends as you have in the flock. Oh, my dear boy, don"t look so strange! It has been a great triumph, Arthur. There is a deputation coming to offer you their support and sympathy. All this dreadful business has not harmed you. Thank G.o.d for that! I think I shall be able to bear anything now."
The minister got up hastily from his chair, and took refuge on the hearthrug. He changed colour; grew red and grew pale; and by way of escaping from the complication of feelings that moved him, once more broke out into impatient exclamations. "Why did you go? Why did not you tell me you were going?" he said. "Why did you leave Susan, who wanted you? Mother, you will never understand that a man"s affairs must not be meddled with!" cried the Nonconformist, with an instinctive effort to conceal the agitation into which this unexpected news threw him. Then he began to pace about the room, exclaiming against the impatience of women, who can never wait for a result. The young man was too proud to acknowledge the state of feverish suspense in which he had been, or the wonderful tumult suddenly produced in his mind. He seized upon this ready safety-valve of irritation, which was half real and half fict.i.tious. It gave him time to collect his troubled thoughts.
"Arthur dear, hush! no one saw me at the meeting. I had my veil down, and spoke to n.o.body," said the widow: "and oh! don"t you think it was only natural that your mother should be there? No one in the world is so much interested in what concerns you. I spoke to no one--except," said Mrs. Vincent, with a little effort, "that strange woman, Arthur, whom you have had so much to do with. Who is she? Oh, my dear boy, I hope you have not formed any connections that you will repent? She said something about a promise, and having given her word. I don"t know why you should have her word, or what she has to do with you. She came here to the door with me to-night."
"Mrs. Hilyard!" cried the minister, suddenly roused. "Mrs.----; no matter what her name is. Where is she? Do you mean that she came here?
They keep no watch over her. To-night of all nights in the world! If you had but stayed at home, I should not have known of her wanderings at least," he said, with vexation. "Now I shall have to go and look after her--she must be sent back again--she must not be allowed to escape."
"Is she mad?" said Mrs. Vincent, alarmed, yet relieved. "Don"t go away, Arthur; she is not here. She said I was to tell you that she had gone back--to Alice. Who is Alice?--who is this woman? What have you to do with her? Oh! my dear boy, you are a minister, and the world is so ready to make remarks. She said you had her word. Oh, Arthur, I hope it does not mean anything you will live to repent?" cried the anxious mother, fixing her jealous eyes on her son"s face. "She is not like you. I cannot tell what you can have to do with such a woman--you who might----" Mrs. Vincent"s fright and anxiety exhausted both her language and her breath.
"It does not matter much after all," said the Nonconformist, who had been busy with his own thoughts, and had only half heard his mother"s adjurations. "Like me?--what has that to do with the matter? But I daresay she will go back, as she said; and now that he is out of danger, and has not accused her, things must take their chance. Mad? It would not be wonderful if she were mad. I can sympathise with people when they are driven out of their wits. Who is this next? Another messenger from the meeting, or perhaps your deputation? I think I shall go mad after a while if I get no rest."
But as the minister stood in ill-concealed excitement by the fire, not without expectation that it might be somebody with an official report from Salem, Mr. Vincent"s landlady, still in her bonnet and shawl, just returned from the meeting, came in to tell the widow of the approach of the doctor. "He"s a-coming directly, ma"am; he"s gone in for a minute to Smith"s, next door, where they"ve got the hooping-cough. And oh, Mr.
Vincent, sir," cried the woman, who had made this a pretence to express her sentiments on the more important subject, "if there hasn"t a-been a sweet meeting! I"d have giv" a half-year"s rent, ma"am, the pastor had been there. All as unanimous and as friendly!--all but them Pigeons, as are the poison of the place; and sweet Miss Phoebe Tozer a-crying of her pretty eyes out; but there ain"t no occasion for crying now," said the triumphant landlady, who had a real stake in the matter. At this touch the minister regained his composure. He went back to his seat at the table, and took up the pen he had thrown down. A bishop could not have looked more grandly indifferent than did the Nonconformist as he turned his back upon his anxious partisan. "Tell the doctor to let me know how Susan is, mother, for I am busy to-night," said the young man.
"I cannot leave my work just now even for Dr. Rider." He began again to write in the excitement of his mind, and produced a sentence which was not one of the least successful of his sentences, while the two women with a certain awe stood silent behind his chair.
"I will not disturb you any longer, my dear boy. Good-night," said Mrs.
Vincent. She went away, followed by the discomfited landlady, who was overwhelmed, and did not know what to make of it. The widow could not but improve such an opportunity. "The minister must not be disturbed in his studies," she said, with importance and in a whisper as she closed the door. "When he is engaged with a subject, it does not answer to go in upon him and disturb his attention. Neither meetings nor anything else, however important, should interrupt a pastor when he is engaged in composition," said the little woman, grandly. But while the mistress of the house departed to her own quarter much overawed, the minister"s mother went to the sick-room with no such composure as she a.s.sumed.
Something she did not understand was in Arthur"s mind. The Salem meeting did not appear to her so conclusive as it had done an hour ago. He was young and high-spirited and proud, and had not that dutiful subjection to the opinions of the flock which became a minister of Salem. What if that visionary horror with which she had frightened Tozer might turn out a real danger? Though she had made such skilful use of it, the possibility she had herself invented had not really alarmed her; but the thought thrilled through her now with a fear which had some remorse in it. She had invoked the ghost, not much believing in any such supernatural climax; but if the apparition really made itself visible, the widow recognised at once her entire want of any power to lay it. She took off her shawl and bonnet with little comfort in her mind on that subject to support her under the returning pangs of anxiety about Susan, which overwhelmed her again as she opened the door of the sick-room. The two troubles united in her heart and aggravated each other, as with a sick throb of expectation she went in to Susan"s bedside. Perhaps there might be "a change"--for better or for worse, something might have happened. The doctor might find something more conclusive to-night in that languid pallid face. The noiseless room struck her with a chill of misery as she went to her usual place, carrying the active life of pain and a troubled heart into that melancholy atmosphere from which life seemed to have fled. With a faltering voice she spoke to Susan, who showed no signs of hearing her except by a feeble half-lifting of her heavy eyelids and restless motion of her frame. No change! Never any change! or, at least, as the nurse imagined, until---- The widow"s heart heaved with a silent sob of anguish--anguish sharp and acute as it is when our misery breaks suddenly upon us out of a veil of other thoughts, and we feel it intolerable. This sudden pang convulsed Mrs. Vincent"s much-tried heart as she wiped the bitter tears out of her eyes and looked at her child, thus gliding, in a hopeless apathy and unconsciousness, out of the arms that strained themselves in vain to hold her. After so much as she had borne in her troubled life, G.o.d knows it was hard. She did not rebel, but her heart lifted up a bitter cry to the Father in heaven.
It was just then, while her anxious ear caught the step of the doctor on the stair, that Mrs. Vincent was aware also of a carriage driving rapidly up to the door. Preoccupied as she was, the sound startled her.
A pa.s.sing wonder who it could be, and the vague expectation which influences the mind at the great crises of life, when one feels that anything may happen, moved her dimly as she rose to receive the doctor.
Dr. Rider came in with his noiseless step and anxious face; they shook hands with each other mechanically, she gazing at him to see what his opinion was before it could be formed--he looking with solicitous serious eyes on the sick-bed. The light was dim, and Dr. Rider held it up to see his patient. There she lay, moving now and then with the restlessness of weakness, the pale large eyelids half closed, the pale lips dropping apart,--a solemn speechless creature, abstracted already out of this world and all its influences. The light that streamed over her for the moment made no difference to Susan. There was nothing here powerful enough to rouse the soul which horror and pa.s.sion had driven into one terrible corner of memory, obliterating all the rest of her life. Dr. Rider looked at her with eyes in which the impatience of powerless strength overcame even his professional reserve. He wrung the widow"s hand, which she laid on his arm in a trembling appeal to him to tell her the worst. "The worst is that she is dying before our eyes, and that she might be saved," he said, leading the poor mother to the other end of the room. "All her heart and soul are concentrated upon that time when she was away from you; unless we can rouse her by something that will recall that time, she will never know you more. Think! is there nothing that would wake her up even to remember the misery she endured?
Where is your servant who was with her?--but she has seen her lately, and nothing has come of that. If you have the courage and strength,"
said the doctor, once more grasping Mrs. Vincent"s hand tight, "to talk of that man under the name she knew him by--to talk of him so as perhaps she might hear; to discuss the matter; anything that will recall her mind. Hush! what is that noise down-stairs?"
Even while listening to the doctor"s dreadful suggestion, Mrs. Vincent had been aware of the opening of the door down-stairs, and of a sound of voices. She was trembling so that she could scarcely stand, princ.i.p.ally, no doubt, on account of this strange demand which he made upon her strength, but with a nervous expectation besides which she could not explain even to herself. But when, out of that confused commotion below, there rose faint but audible the sound of a voice calling "Susan!
Susan!" the two anxious people started apart, and turned a wondering momentary gaze upon each other, involuntarily asking what was that? what did it mean? Then the doctor rushed to the door, where the widow followed him as well as her trembling limbs would permit. She saw him dash down-stairs, and herself stood grasping the railing, waiting for what was about to happen, with her heart so beating and fluttering in her breast that she could scarcely breathe for it. She could make nothing of the rapid interrogation that went on downstairs. She heard the voice of the doctor in hasty questions, and the slow, agitated, somewhat confused utterance of a strange voice, which appeared to answer him; and once or twice through these sounds came the strange cry, "Susan! Susan!" which went to the widow"s heart. Who could this be that called upon Susan with so pathetic a repet.i.tion? It seemed a very long interval to Mrs. Vincent before the doctor reappeared, and yet so short was the time, that the door by which the new-comers, whoever they were, had entered, was still open, admitting some strange familiar sounds from the street into the bewildering maze of wonder and expectation. Mrs.
Vincent held fast by the rails to support herself, when she saw the doctor returning up the stair, leading by the hand a girl whom he grasped fast, and carried along with him by a kind of gentle but strong compulsion. It was she who was calling Susan, gazing round her with large dilated blue eyes, looking everywhere for something she had not yet found. A beautiful girl--more beautiful than anything mortal to the widow"s surprised and wondering eyes. Who was she? The face was very young, sadly simple, framed by long curling locks of fair hair, and the broad circle of a large flapping Leghorn hat and blue veil. A bewildered half-recognition came to Mrs. Vincent"s mind as this blue veil waved in her face in the wind from the open door; but excitement and anxiety had deprived her of speech: she could ask no questions. "Here is the physician," said Dr. Rider, with a kindred excitement in his voice. He went into the room before her, leading the girl, behind whom there followed slowly a confused and disturbed woman, whose face Mrs. Vincent felt she had seen before. The mother, half jealous in her wonder, pressed in after the doctor to guard her Susan even from experiments of healing. "Doctor, doctor, who is it?" she said. But Dr. Rider held up his hand imperatively to silence her. The room was imperfectly lighted with candles burning dimly, and a faint glow of firelight. "Susan!"
cried the eager child"s voice, with a weary echo of longing and disappointment. "Susan!--take me to Susan; she is not here." Then Dr.
Rider led her round to the bedside, closely followed by the widow, and, lifting a candle, threw its light fully upon the stranger. "Is it Susan?" said the girl. "Will she not speak to me?--is she dead? Susan, oh Susan, Susan!" It was an outcry of childish impatience and despair, rising louder than any voice had risen in that room for many a day. Then she burst forth into tears and sobs. "Susan!--she will not speak to me, she will not look at me!" cried the stranger, drawing her arm out of the doctor"s hold, and clasping her hands together. There was a slight movement in the bed; not the restless tossing with which her nurse was familiar, but a trembling shiver came over that dying frame. The sound had reached to the dull ears of the patient. She lifted her heavy eyelids, and looked round with half-awakened eyes. "Call her again, again!" said the doctor, in an intense whisper, which seemed to thrill through the room. The girl, who was engaged with a much more engrossing interest of her own, took no notice of the doctor. She knew nothing about Susan"s danger--she was bent on gaming succour for herself.
"Susan! tell her to look at me--at me! Susan! I care for n.o.body but you!" said the lovely helpless creature, with strange half-articulate cries, pressing closer to the bed. "You are to take care of me." Mrs.
Vincent pressed forward with pangs of anxiety, of terror, of hope, and of a mother"s tender jealousy through all, as these strange entreaties filled the room. She too cried aloud, as she perceived the awakening in that pallid face, the faint movement as if to raise herself up, which indicated a conscious effort on the part of Susan. The clouds were breaking on that obscured and hopeless firmament. The light, which trembled in the doctor"s hand, caught a gleam of understanding and life in Susan"s eyes, as her mother flew to raise her up, obeying the suggestion of that unhoped-for movement. "Susan! you said you would take care of me!" cried the young stranger, throwing herself upon the bedside and grasping at the weak arm which once had protected her. The touch of her hands awoke the slumbering soul. Slowly the light grew in Susan"s eyes. She who had not moved for days except in the restless tossings of languor, lifted those white feeble arms to put them round the appealing child. Then Susan struggled up, faint, yet inspired, unconscious of her mother"s help that enabled her to do so, and confronted the strange people in her room, whom she had seen for weeks past, but did not know, with living eyes. "n.o.body shall touch her--we will protect each other,"
said the voice that had grown strange even to her mother"s ears. Mrs.
Vincent could hardly be restrained from breaking in with a thousand caresses and outcries of joy and thankfulness. But Dr. Rider quieted the poor mother with a touch of his hand. "Let them alone," he said, with that authority which no one in a sick-room can resist. Mrs. Vincent kept back with unspeakable pangs in her heart, and watched the waking up of that paralysed life which, alike in its loss and its recovery, had been swept apart from her into another world. Without any help from her mother, without even recognising her mother or distinguishing her from the strangers round, Susan"s soul awoke. She raised herself more and more among those pillows where a little while ago she lay so pa.s.sively--she opened her eyes fully and looked round upon the man by her bedside, and the other indistinct figures in the room, with a look of resistance and conscious strength. "We will protect each other," said Susan, slowly, "n.o.body shall harm her--we will keep each other safe."
Then, after another interval, other instincts awoke in the reviving soul. She cast a wistful look from one to another, always drawing her faint white arm round the girl who clung to her and found security in her clasp. "Hush, hush! there are women here," she said in a whisper, and with a tone of strange confusion, light breaking through the darkness. Then there followed a long pause. Dr. Rider stood by the bedside holding up his candle, attracting the wandering wistful glances of his patient, who ceased to look at him with defiance as her eyes again and again returned to the face, of which, often as it had bent over her, she had no knowledge. All over the unknown room wandered those strange looks, interrogating everything with a wistfulness beyond words.
What was this strange unfamiliar world into which, after her trance of suffering, Susan had awakened? She did not know where she was, nor who the people were who surrounded her. But the recollection of deadly peril was not more distinct upon her confused mind than was the sentiment of safety, of love, and watchfulness which somehow abode in this strange dim room, in the little undecipherable circle of faces which surrounded her bed. "Hush!" said Susan again, holding the stranger close. "Here are women--women! n.o.body will harm us;" then, with a sudden flush over all her face and cry of joy as the doctor suddenly threw the light full upon Mrs. Vincent, who was bending over her, her mind struggled into possession of itself,--"Here is my mother! she has come to take us home!"
Mrs. Vincent remembered nothing more; she did not faint, for her child wanted her--she sat all the night through on the bed, with Susan leaning against her shoulder, clinging to her, holding her fast--starting again and again to make sure that all was safe, and that it was, indeed, her mother"s arms that held her. Her soul was recalled out of that trance of death. They laid the beautiful child upon the sofa in her young guardian"s sight, to keep up that happy influence; and when the night was about half spent, the widow, throbbing all over her wearied frame with exhaustion, pain, and joy, perceived that her Susan had fallen deep and sweet asleep, clasping close, as if never again to lose hold of them, her mother"s tender hands.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE after-events of the evening naturally lessened, in the minister"s family at least, the all-absorbing interest of the meeting at Salem.
Even Mr. Vincent"s landlady, in her wondering narrative of the scene in the sick-room--which, all Mrs. Vincent"s usual decorums being thrust aside by that unexpected occurrence, she had witnessed--forgot the other public event which was of equally great importance. The house was in a state of agitation as great as on Susan"s return; and when the exulting doctor, whose experiment had been so rarely successful, turned all supernumerary persons out of the sick-room, it fell to Vincent"s part to take charge of the perplexed governess, Miss Smith, who stood outside, anxious to offer explanations, a fatigued and hara.s.sed, but perfectly virtuous and exemplary woman. Vincent, who had not realised his sister"s extreme peril, and who was rather disconcerted by this fresh invasion of his house, opened the door of his sitting-room for her with more annoyance than hospitality. His own affairs were urgent in his mind. He could not keep his thoughts from dwelling upon Salem and what had occurred there, though no one else thought of it. Had he known the danger in which his sister lay, his heart might have rejected every secondary matter. But the minister did not know that Susan had been sinking into the last apathy when this sudden arrival saved her. He gave Miss Smith the easy-chair by the fire, and listened with an appearance of attention, but with little real understanding, to her lengthy and perplexed story. She was all in a flutter, the good governess said: everything was so mysterious and out of the way, she did not know what to think. Little Alice"s mamma, Miss Russell that was, Mrs. Mildmay she meant, had brought the child back to her after that dreadful business at Dover. What was the rights of that business, could Mr. Vincent tell her?
Colonel Mildmay was getting better, she knew, and it was not a murder; and she was heartbroken when she heard the trouble poor dear Miss Vincent had got into about it. Well, Alice"s mamma brought back the child, and they started with her at once to France. They went up beyond Lyons to the hills, an out-of-the-way little place, but Mrs. Mildmay was always so nervous. "And then she left us, Mr. Vincent," said the afflicted governess, as the minister, in grievous impatience, kept pacing up and down the room thus occupied and taken possession of--"left us without a soul to speak to or a church within reach; and if there is one thing I have more horror of than another for its effect upon the youthful mind, it is Popery, which is so seductive to the imagination.
Alice did not take to her mamma, Mr. Vincent. It was natural enough, but it was hard upon Mrs. Mildmay: she never had a good way with children; and from the moment we started till now, it has been impossible to get your sister out of the child"s mind. She took a fancy to her the moment she saw her. Girls of that age, if you will not think it strange of me to say so, very often fall in love with a girl older than themselves--quite fall in love, though it is a strange thing to say.
Alice would not rest--she gave me no peace. I wrote to say so, but I think Mrs. Mildmay could not have got my letter. The child would have run away by herself if I had not brought her. Besides," said Miss Smith, apologetically, "the doctors have a.s.sured me that, if she ever became much interested in any one, or attached to anybody in particular, she was not to be crossed. It was the best chance for her mind, the doctors said. What could I do? What do you think I could do, Mr. Vincent? I brought her home, for I could not help myself--otherwise she would have run away. She has a very strong will, though she looks so gentle. I hope you will help me to explain the circ.u.mstances to Mrs. Mildmay, and how it was I came back without her authority. Don"t you think they ought to call in the friends on both sides and come to some arrangement, Mr.
Vincent?" said the excellent woman, anxiously. "I know she trusts you very much, and it was she herself who gave me your address."
To this speech Vincent listened with an impatience and restlessness which he found it impossible to conceal. He paced about the darker end of his room, on the other side of that table, where the lamp shone vacantly upon his open desk and scattered papers, answering now and then with a mono-syllable of reluctant courtesy, irritated and disturbed beyond expression by the perfectly serious and proper figure seated by the fire. Somebody might come from that a.s.sembly which had met to discuss him, and he could not be alone to receive them. In the annoyance of the moment the minister almost chafed at his sister and her concerns.
His life was invaded by these women, with their mysteries and agonies.
He listened to the steps outside, thinking every moment to hear the steady tramp of the deputation from Salem, or at least Tozer, whom it would have been balm to his mind, in the height of the good man"s triumph, to cut short and annihilate. But how do that, or anything else, with this woman seated by his fire explaining her unintelligible affairs? Such was Vincent"s state of mind while his mother, in an agony of joy, was hearing from Susan"s lips, for the first time, broken explanations of those few days of her life which outbalanced in terrible importance all its preceding years. The minister did not know that his sister"s very existence, as well as her reason, hung upon that unhoped-for opening of her mouth and her heart.
Matters were not much mended when Dr. Rider came in, beaming and radiant, full of congratulations. Susan was saved. It was the most curious psychological puzzle, the doctor said; all her life had got concentrated into the few days between her departure from Lonsdale and her arrival at Carlingford. Neither her old existence, nor the objects that surrounded her at the moment, had any significance for Susan; only something that belonged to that wonderful interval in which she had been driven desperate, could win back consciousness to her mind. It was the most singular case he had ever met with; but he knew this was the only way of treating it, and so it had proved. He recognised the girl with the blue veil the moment he saw her--he knew it could be no other.
Who was she? where had she sprung from at that critical moment? where had she been? what was to be done with her? Dr. Rider poured forth his questions like a stream. He was full of professional triumph, not to say natural satisfaction. He could not understand how his patient"s brother, at that wonderful crisis, could have a mind preoccupied or engaged with other things. The doctor turned with lively sympathy and curiosity from the anxious Nonconformist to Miss Smith, who was but too willing to begin all her explanations over again. Dr. Rider, accustomed to hear many personal narratives, collected this story a great deal more clearly than Vincent, who was so much more interested in it, had, with all his opportunities, been able to do. How long the poor minister might have suffered under this conversation, it is impossible to tell. But Mrs.
Vincent, in all the agitation of her daughter"s deliverance, could not forget the griefs of others. She sent a little message to her son, begging that he would send word of this arrival to "the poor lady." "To let her know--but she must not come here to-night," was the widow"s message, who was just then having the room darkened, and everything arranged for the night, if perhaps her child might sleep. This message delivered the minister; it recalled Miss Smith to her duty. She it was who must go and explain everything to her patroness. Dr. Rider, whose much-excited wonder was still further stimulated by hearing that the child"s mother was at Lady Western"s, that she was Mrs. Mildmay, and that the Nonconformist was in her confidence, cheerfully undertook to carry the governess in his drag to Grange Lane, not without hopes of further information; and it was now getting late. Miss Smith made Vincent a tremulous curtsy, and held out her hand to him to say good-night. "The doctor will perhaps explain to Mrs. Mildmay why I have left little Alice," said the troubled woman. "I never left her before since she was intrusted to me--never but when her papa stole her away; and you are a minister, Mr. Vincent, and oh, I hope I am doing quite right, and as Alice"s mamma will approve! But if she disapproves I must come back and----"
"They must not be disturbed to-night," said Dr. Rider, promptly; "I will see Mrs. Mildmay." He was not reluctant to see Mrs. Mildmay. The doctor, though he was not a gossip, was not inaccessible to the pleasure of knowing more than anybody else of the complications of this strange business, which still afforded matter of talk to Carlingford. He hurried her away while still the good governess was all in a flutter, and for the first time the minister was left alone. It was with a troubled mind that the young man resumed his seat at his desk. He began to get utterly weary of this business, and all about it. If he could only have swept away in a whirlwind, with his mother and sister, where the name of Mildmay had never been heard of, and where he could for ever get rid of that haunting woman with her gleaming eyes, who had pursued even his gentle mother to the door! but this new complication seemed to involve him deeper than ever in those strange bonds. It was with a certain disgust that the minister thought it all over as he sat leaning his head on his hands. His way was dark before him, yet it must speedily be decided. Everything was at a crisis in his excited mind and troubled life--even that strange lovely child"s face, which had roused Susan from her apathy, had its share in the excitement of her brother"s thoughts; for it was but another version, with differences, of the face of that other Alice, who all unwittingly had procured for Vincent the sweetest and the hardest hours he had spent in Carlingford. Were they all to pa.s.s like a dream--her smiles, her sweet looks, her kind words, even that magical touch upon his arm, which had once charmed him out of all his troubles? A groan came out of the young man"s heart, not loud, but deep, as that thought moved him. The very despair of this love-dream had been more exquisite than any pleasure of his life. Was it all to pa.s.s away and be no longer? Life and thought, the actual and the visionary, had both come to a climax, and seemed to stand still, waiting the decision which must be come to that night.
From these musings the entrance of Tozer roused the minister. The excellent b.u.t.terman came in all flushed and glowing from his success. To him, the meeting, which already the Nonconformist had half lost sight of under the superstructure of subsequent events, had newly concluded, and was the one occurrence of the time. The cheers which had hailed him master of the field were still ringing in Tozer"s ears. "I don"t deny as I am intoxicated-like," said the excellent deacon; "them cheers was enough to carry any man off his legs, sir, if you"ll believe me. We"ve scattered the enemy, that"s what we"ve been and done, Mr. Vincent. There ain"t one of them as will dare show face in Salem. We was unanimous, sir--unanimous, that"s what we was! I never see such a triumph in our connection. Hurrah! If it warn"t Miss as is ill, I could give it you all over again, cheers and all."
"I am glad you were pleased," said Vincent, with an effort; "but I will not ask you for such a report of the proceedings."
"Pleased! I"ll tell you one thing as I was sorry for, sir," said Tozer, somewhat subdued in his exultation by the pastor"s calmness--"I did it for the best; but seeing as things have turned out so well, I am as sorry as I can be--and that is, that you wasn"t there. It was from expecting some unpleasantness as I asked you not to come; but things turning out as they did, it would have done your heart good to see "em, Mr. Vincent. Salem folks has a deal of sense when you put things before them effective. And then you"d only have had to say three words to them on the spur of the moment, and all was settled and done with, and everything put straight; which would have let them settle down steady, sir, at once, and not kept no excitement, as it were, hanging about."
"Yes," said the minister, who was moving about his papers, and did not look up. The b.u.t.terman began to be alarmed; he grew more and more enthusiastic the less response he met with.
"It"s a meeting as will tell in the connection," said Tozer, with unconscious foresight; "a candid mind in a congregation ain"t so general as you and me would like to see, Mr. Vincent, and it takes a bit of a trial like this, sir, and opposition, to bring out the real attachment as is between a pastor and a flock."
"Yes," said Vincent again. The deacon did not know what to make of the minister. Had he been piqued and angry, Tozer thought he might have known how to manage him, but this coldness was an alarming and mysterious symptom which he was unequal to. In his embarra.s.sment and anxiety the good b.u.t.terman stumbled upon the very subject from which, had he known the true state of affairs, he would have kept aloof.
"And the meeting as was to be to-morrow night?" said Tozer; "there ain"t no need for explanation now--a word or two out of the pulpit is all as is wanted, just to say as it"s all over, and you"re grateful for their attachment, and so forth; you know a deal better, sir, how to do it nor me. And about the meeting as was called for to-morrow night?--me and the misses were thinking, though it"s sudden, as it might be turned into a tea-meeting, if you was agreeable, just to make things pleasant; or if that ain"t according to your fancy, as I"m aware you"re not one as likes tea-meetings, we might send round, Mr. Vincent to all the seat-holders to say as it"s given up; I"d do one or the other, if you"d be advised by me."
"Thank you--but I can"t do either one or the other," said the Nonconformist. "I would not have asked the people to meet me if I had not had something to say to them--and this night"s business, you understand," said Vincent, with a little pride, "has made no difference in me."
"No, sir, no--to be sure not," said the perplexed b.u.t.terman, much bewildered; "but two meetings on two nights consecutive is running the flock hard, it is. I"d give up to-morrow, Mr. Vincent, if I was you."
To this insinuating address the minister made no answer--he only shook his head. Poor Tozer, out of his exultation, fell again into the depths.
The blow was so unlooked-for that it overwhelmed him.
"You"ll not go and make no reflections, sir?" said the troubled deacon; "bygones is bygones. You"ll not bring it up against them, as they didn"t show that sympathy they might have done? You"ll not make no reference to n.o.body in particular, Mr. Vincent? When a flock is conscious as they"ve done their duty and stood by their pastor, it ain"t a safe thing, sir, not to turn upon them, and rake up things as is past. If you"ll take my advice, sir, as wishes you well, and hasn"t no motive but your good, I"d not hold that meeting, Mr. Vincent; or, if you"re bent upon it, say the word, and we"ll set to work and give "em a tea-meeting, and make all things comfortable. But if you was prudent, sir, and would go by my advice, one or the other of them two is what I would do."
"Thank you, Tozer, all the same," said Vincent, who, notwithstanding his preoccupation, saw the good b.u.t.terman"s anxiety, and appreciated it. "I know very well that all that is pleasant to-night is owing to you. Don"t suppose I don"t understand how you"ve fought for me; but now the business is mine, and I can take no more advice. Think no more of it; you have done all that you could do."
"I have done my humble endeavour, sir, as is my dooty, to keep things straight," said the deacon, doubtfully; "and if you"d tell me what was in your mind, Mr. Vincent----?"
But the young Nonconformist gathered up his papers, closed his desk, and held out his hand to the kind-hearted b.u.t.terman. "My sister has come back almost from the grave to-night," said Vincent; "and we are all, for anything I can see, at the turning-point of our lives. You have done all you can do, and I thank you heartily; but now the business is in my hands."
This was all the satisfaction Tozer got from the minister. He went home much discouraged, not knowing what to make of it, but did not confide his fears even to his wife, hoping that reflection would change the pastor"s mind, and resolved to make another effort to-morrow. And so the night fell over the troubled house. In the sick-room a joyful agitation had taken the place of the dark and hopeless calm. Susan, roused to life, lay leaning against her mother, looking at the child asleep on the sofa by her, unconscious of the long and terrible interval between the danger which that child had shared, and the delicious security to which her mind had all at once awakened. To Susan"s consciousness, it appeared as if her mother had suddenly risen out of the mists, and delivered the two helpless creatures who had suffered together. She could not press close enough to this guardian of her life. She held her arms round her, and laid her cheek against the widow"s with the dependence of a child upon her mother"s bosom. Mrs. Vincent sat upon the bed supporting her, herself supported in her weariness by love and joy, two divine attendants who go but seldom together. The two talked in whispers,--Susan because of her feebleness, the mother in the instinct of caressing tenderness. The poor girl told her story in broken syllables--broken by the widow"s kisses and murmurs of sympathy, of wonder and love. Healing breathed upon the stricken mind and feeble frame as the two clung together in the silent night, always with an unspoken reference to the beautiful forlorn creature on the sofa--that visible symbol of all the terrors and troubles past. "I told her my mother would come to save us," said poor Susan. When she dropt to sleep at last, the mother leant her aching frame upon some pillows, afraid to move, and slept too, supreme protector, in her tender weakness, of these two young lives. As she woke from time to time to see her child sleeping by her side, thoughts of her son"s deliverance stole across Mrs.
Vincent"s mind to sweeten her repose. The watch-light burned dimly in the room, and threw a gigantic shadow of her little figure, half erect on the side of the bed, still in her black gown and the close white cap, which could not be less than dainty in its neatness, even in that vigil, upon the further wall. The widow slept only in s.n.a.t.c.hes, waking often and keeping awake, as people do when they grow old; her thoughts, ever alive and active, varying between her projects for the future, to save Susan from all painful knowledge of her own story, and the thankful recollection of Arthur"s rescue from his troubles. From echoes of Tozer"s speech, and of the cheers of the flock, her imagination wandered off into calculations of how she could find another place of habitation as pleasant, perhaps, as Lonsdale, and even to the details of her removal from thence, what portions of her furniture she would sell, and which take with her. "For now that Arthur has got out of his troubles, we must not stay to get him into fresh difficulties with his flock," she said to herself, with a momentary ache in her thankful heart; and so dropped asleep for another half-hour, to wake again presently, and enter anew into the whole question. Such was the way in which Mrs. Vincent pa.s.sed that agitated but joyful night.
In the adjoining room Arthur sat up late over his papers. He was not writing, or doing any work; for hours together he sat leaning his head on his hands, gazing intently at the lamp, which his mother had adjusted, until his eyes were dazzled, and the gloom of the room around became spotted with discs of shade. Was he to permit the natural gratification into which Tozer"s success had reluctantly moved him, to alter his resolve? Was he to drop into his old harness and try again? or was he to carry out his purpose in the face of all entreaties and inducements? The natural inclination to adopt the easiest course--and the equally natural, impetuous, youthful impulse to take the leap to which he had made up his mind, and dash forth in the face of his difficulties--gave him abundant occupation for his thoughts as they contended against each other. He sat arguing the question within himself long after his fire had sunk into ashes. When the penetrating cold of the night drove him at last to bed, the question was still dubious. Even in his sleep the uneasy perplexity pursued him;--a matter momentous enough, though n.o.body but Tozer--who was as restless as the minister, and disturbed his wife by groans and murmurs, of which, when indignantly woke up to render an account, he could give no explanation--knew or suspected anything. Whether to take up his anchors altogether and launch out upon that sea of life, of which, much as he had discussed it in his sermons, the young Nonconformist knew next to nothing? The widow would not have mused so quietly with her wakeful eyes in the dim room next to him, had she known what discussions were going on in Arthur"s mind. As for the congregation of Salem, they slept soundly, with an exhilarating sensation of generosity and goodness,--all except the Pigeons, who were plotting schism, and had already in their eye a vacant Temperance Hall, where a new preaching station might be organised under the auspices of somebody who would rival Vincent. The triumphant majority, however, laughed at the poulterer, and antic.i.p.ated, with a pleasurable expectation, the meeting of next night, and the relief and delight of the pastor, who would find he had no explanations to make, but only his thanks to render to his generous flock. The good people concluded that they would all stop to shake hands with him after the business was over.
"For it"s as good as receiving of him again, and giving him the right hand of fellowship," said Mrs. Brown at the Dairy, who was entirely won over to the minister"s side. Only Tozer, groaning in his midnight visions, and disturbing the virtuous repose of his wedded partner, suspected the new cloud that hung over Salem. For before morning the minister"s mind was finally made up.