There's but three whole pews in the chapel as isn't engaged," said the b.u.t.terman, with a softening glance at the pastor; "and the Miss Hemmings sent over this morning to say as they meant to come regular the time you was on the Miracles; and but for this cackle of the women, as you'll soon get over, there ain't a thing as I can see to stop us filling up to the most influential chapel in the connection; I mean in our parts."

The subdued swell of expectation with which the ambitious b.u.t.terman concluded, somehow made Vincent more tolerant even in his undiminished excitement. He gave a subdued groan over all this that was expected of him, but not without a little answering thrill in his own troubled and impatient heart.

"A week can't make much difference, if I am ever to do any good," said the young man. "I must go now; but if you explain the matter for me, you will smooth the way. I will bring my mother and sister here," he went on, giving himself over for a moment to a little gleam of comfort, "and everything will go on better. I am worried and anxious now, and don't know what I am about. Give me some paper, and I will write to Beecher.

You will like him. He is a good fellow, and preaches much better than I do," added poor Vincent with a sigh, sitting wearily down by the big table. He was subdued to his condition at that moment, and Tozer appreciated the momentary humbleness.

"I am not the man to desert my minister when he's in trouble," said the brave b.u.t.terman. "Look you here, Mr. Vincent; don't fret yourself about it. I'll take it in hand; and I'd like to see the man in Salem as would say to the contrary again' me and the pastor both. Make your mind easy; I'll manage 'em. As for the women," said Tozer, scratching his head, "I don't pretend not to be equal to that; but my missis is as reasonable as most; and Phoebe, she'll stand up for you, whatever you do. If you'll take my advice, and be a bit prudent, and don't go after no more vanities, things ain't so far wrong but a week or two will make them right."

With this consolatory a.s.surance Vincent began to write his letter.

Before he had concluded it, the maid came to lay the cloth for dinner, thrusting him into a corner, where he accomplished his writing painfully on his knee with his ink on the window-sill, a position in which Phoebe found him when she ventured down-stairs. It was she who took his letter from him, and ran with it to the shop to despatch it at once; and Phoebe came back to tell him that Mrs. Vincent was resting, and that it was _so_ pleasant to see him back again after such a time. "I never expected you would have any patience for us when I saw you knew Lady Western _so_ well. Oh, she is so sweetly pretty! and if I were a gentleman, I know I should fall _deep_ in love with her," said Phoebe, with a sidelong glance, and not without hopes of calling forth a disclaimer from the minister; but the poor minister, jammed up in the corner, whence it was now necessary to extricate his chair preparatory to sitting down to a family dinner with the Tozers, was, as usual, unequal to the occasion, and had nothing to say. Phoebe's chair was by the minister's side during that substantial meal; and the large fire which burned behind Mrs. Tozer at the head of the table, and the steaming viands on the hospitable board, and the prevailing atmosphere of cheese and bacon which entered when the door was opened, made even Mrs. Vincent pale and flush a little in the heroic patience and friendliness with which she bent all her powers to secure the support of these adherents to her son. "I could have wished, Arthur, they were a little more refined," she said, faintly, when the dinner was over, and they were at last on their way to the train; "but I am sure they are very _genuine_, my dear; and one good friend is often everything to a pastor; and I am so glad we went at such a time." So glad! The young Nonconformist heaved a tempestuous sigh, and turned away not without a reflection upon the superficial emotions of women who at such a time could he glad. But Mrs. Vincent, for her part, with a fatigue and sickness of heart which she concealed from herself as much as she could, let down her veil, and cried quietly behind it. Perhaps her share of the day's exhaustion had not been the mildest or least hard.

CHAPTER XVI.

The journey was troublesome and tedious, involving a change from one railway to another, and a troubled glimpse into the most noisy streets of London by the way. Vincent had left his mother, as he thought, safe in the cab which carried them to the second railway station, and was disposing of the little luggage they had with them, that he might not require to leave her again, when he heard an anxious voice calling him, and found her close behind him, afloat in the bustle and confusion of the crowd, dreadfully agitated and helpless, calling upon her Arthur with impatient accents of distress. His annoyance to find her there increased her confusion and trembling. "Arthur," she gasped out, "I saw him--I saw him--not a minute ago--in a cab--with some ladies; oh, my dear, run after him. That was the way he went. Arthur, Arthur, why don't you go? Never mind me--I can take care of myself."

"Who was it--how did he go?--why didn't you stop him, mother?" cried the young man, rushing back to the spot she had left. Nothing was to be seen there but the usual attendant group of railway porters, and the alarmed cabman who had been keeping his eye on Mrs. Vincent. The poor widow gasped as she gazed and saw no traces of the enemy who had eluded them.

"Oh, Arthur, my dear boy, I thought, in such a case, it ought to be a man to speak to him," faltered Mrs. Vincent. "He went that way--that way, look!--in a cab, with somebody in a blue veil."

Vincent rushed away in the direction she indicated, at a pace which he was totally unused to, and of course quite unable to keep up beyond the first heat; but few things could be more hopeless than to dash into the whirl of vehicles in the crowded current of the New Road, with any vain hope of identifying one which had ten minutes' start, and no more distinctive mark of ident.i.ty than the spectrum of a blue veil. He rushed back again, angry with himself for losing breath in so vain an attempt, just in time to place his mother in a carriage and jump in beside her before the train started. Mrs. Vincent's anxiety, her questions which he could not hear, her doubts whether it might not have been best to have missed the train and followed Mr. Fordham, aggravated the much-tried patience of her son beyond endurance. They set off upon their sad journey with a degree of injured feeling on both sides, such as often gives a miserable complication to a mutual anxiety. But the mother, wounded and timid, feeling more than ever the difference between the boy who was all her own and the man who had thoughts and impulses of which she knew nothing, was naturally the first to recover and to make wistful overtures of peace.

"Well, Arthur," she said, after a while, leaning forward to him, her mild voice making a gentle murmur through the din of the journey, "though it was very foolish of me not to speak to him when I saw him, still, dear, he is gone and out of the way; that is a great comfort--we will never, never let him come near Susan again. That is just what I was afraid of; I have been saying to myself all day, 'What if he should go to Lonsdale too, and deny it all?' but Providence, you see, dear, has ordered it for us, and now he shall never come near my poor child again."

"Do you think he has been to Lonsdale?" asked Vincent.

"My poor Susan!" said his simple mother, "she will be happier than ever when we come to her with this dreadful news. Yes; I suppose he must have been seeing her, Arthur--and I am glad it has happened while I was away, and before we knew; and now he is gone," said the widow, looking out of the carriage with a sigh of relief, as if she could still see the road by which he had disappeared--"now he is gone, there will be no need for any dreadful strife or arguments. G.o.d always arranges things for us so much better than we can arrange them for ourselves. Fancy if he had come to-morrow to tear her dear heart to pieces!--Oh, Arthur, I am very thankful! There will be nothing to do now but to think best how to break it to her. He had ladies with him; it is dreadful to think of such villany. Oh, Arthur, do you imagine it could be his wife?--and somebody in a blue veil."

"A blue veil!"--Mrs. Hilyard's message suddenly occurred to Vincent's mind, with its special mention of that article of disguise. "If this man is the man we suppose, he has accomplished one of his wishes," said the minister, slowly; "and she will kill him as sure as he lives."

"Who will kill him?--I hope nothing has occurred about your friend's child to agitate my Susan," said his mother. "It was all the kindness of your heart, my dear boy; but it was very imprudent of you to let Susan's name be connected with anybody of doubtful character. Oh, Arthur, dear, we have both been very imprudent!--you have so much of my quick temper.

It was a punishment to me to see how impatient you were to-day; but Susan takes after your dear father. Oh, my own boy, pray; pray for her, that her heart may not be broken by this dreadful news."

And Mrs. Vincent leant back in her corner, and once more put down her veil. Pray!--who was he to pray for? Susan, forlorn and innocent, disappointed in her first love, but unharmed by any worldly soil or evil pa.s.sion?--or the other sufferers involved in more deadly sort, himself palpitating with feverish impulses, broken loose from all his peaceful youthful moorings, burning with discontents and aspirations, not spiritual, but of the world? Vincent prayed none as he asked himself that bitter question. He drew back in his seat opposite his mother, and pondered in his heart the wonderful difference between the objects of compa.s.sion to whom the world gives ready tears, and those of whom the world knows and suspects nothing. Susan! he could see her mother weeping over her in her white and tender innocence. What if, perhaps, she broke her young heart? the shock would only send the girl with more clinging devotion to the feet of the great Father; but as for himself, all astray from duty and sober life, devoured with a consuming fancy, loathing the way and the work to which he had been trained to believe that Father had called him--who thought of weeping?--or for Her, whom his alarmed imagination could not but follow, going forth remorseless and silent to fulfil her promise, and kill the man who had wronged her?

Oh, the cheat of tears!--falling sweet over the young sufferers whom sorrow blessed--drying up from the horrible complex pathways where other souls, in undisclosed anguish, went farther and farther from G.o.d!

With such thoughts the mother and son hurried on upon their darkling journey. It was the middle of the night when they arrived in Lonsdale--a night starless, but piercing with cold. They were the only pa.s.sengers who got out at the little station, where two or three lamps glared wildly on the night, and two pale porters made a faint bustle to forward the long convoy of carriages upon its way. One of these men looked anxiously at the widow, as if with the sudden impulse of asking a question, or communicating some news, but was called off by his superior before he could speak. Vincent unconsciously observed the look, and was surprised and even alarmed by it, without knowing why. It returned to his mind, as he gave his mother his arm to walk the remaining distance home. Why did the man put on that face of curiosity and wonder? But, to be sure, to see the mild widow arrive in this unexpected way in the middle of the icy January night, must have been surprising enough to any one who knew her, and her gentle decorous life. He tried to think no more of it, as they set out upon the windy road, where a few sparely-scattered lamps blinked wildly, and made the surrounding darkness all the darker. The station was half a mile from the town, and Mrs. Vincent's cottage was on the other side of Lonsdale, across the river, which stole sighing and gleaming through the heart of the little place. Somehow the sudden black shine of that water as they caught it, crossing the bridge, brought a shiver and flash of wild imagination to the mind of the Nonconformist. He thought of suicides, murders, ghastly concealment, and misery; and again the face of the porter returned upon him. What if something had happened while the watchful mother had been out of the way? The wind came sighing round the corners with an ineffectual gasp, as if it too had some warning, some message to deliver. Instinctively he drew his mother's arm closer, and hurried her on. Suggestions of horrible unthought-of evil seemed lurking everywhere in the noiseless blackness of the night.

Mrs. Vincent shivered too, but it was with cold and natural agitation.

In her heart she was putting tender words together, framing tender phrases--consulting with herself how she was to look, and how to speak.

Already she could see the half-awakened girl, starting up all glowing and sweet from her safe rest, unforeboding of evil; and the widow composed her face under the shadow of her veil, and sent back with an effort the unshed tears from her eyes, that Susan might not see any traces in her face, till she had "prepared her" a little, for that dreadful, inevitable blow.

The cottage was all dark, as was natural--doubly dark to-night, for there was no light in the skies, and the wind had extinguished the lamp which stood nearest, and on ordinary occasions threw a doubtful flicker on the little house. "Susan will soon hear us, she is such a light sleeper," said Mrs. Vincent. "Ring the bell, Arthur. I don't like using the knocker, to disturb the neighbours. Everybody would think it so surprising to hear a noise in the middle of the night from our house.

There--wait a moment. That was a very loud ring; Susan must be sleeping very soundly if that does not wake her up."

There was a little pause; not a sound, except the tinkling of the bell, which they could hear inside as the peal gradually subsided, was in the air; breathless silence, darkness, cold, an inhuman preternatural chill and watchfulness, no welcome sound of awakening sleepers, only their own dark shadows in the darkness, listening like all the hushed surrounding world at that closed door.

"Poor dear! Oh, Arthur, it is dreadful to come and break her sleep,"

sighed Mrs. Vincent, whose strain of suspense and expectation heightened the effect of the cold: "when will she sleep as sound again? Give another ring, dear. How terribly dark and quiet it is! Ring again, again, Arthur!--dear, dear me, to think of Susan in such a sound sleep!--and generally she starts at any noise. It is to give her strength to bear what is coming, poor child, poor child!"

The bell seemed to echo out into the silent road, it pealed so clearly and loudly through the shut-up house, but not another sound disturbed the air without or within. Mrs. Vincent began to grow restless and alarmed. She went out into the road, and gazed up at the closed windows; her very teeth chattered with anxiety and cold.

"It is very odd she does not wake," said the widow; "she must be rousing now, surely. Arthur, don't look as if we had bad news. Try to command your countenance, dear. Hush! don't you hear them stirring? Now, Arthur, Arthur, oh remember not to look so dreadful as you did in Carlingford! I am sure I hear her coming down-stairs. Hark! what is it? Ring again, Arthur--again!"

The words broke confused and half-articulate from her lips; a vague dread took possession of her, as of her son. For his part, he rang the bell wildly without pausing, and applied the knocker to the echoing door with a sound which seemed to reverberate back and back through the darkness. It was not the sleep of youth Vincent thought of, as, without a word to say, he thundered his summons on the cottage door. He was not himself aware what he was afraid of; but in his mind he saw the porter's alarmed and curious look, and felt the ominous silence thrilling with loud clangour of his own vain appeals through the deserted house.

At length a sound--the mother and son both rushed speechless towards the side-window, from which it came. The window creaked slowly open, and a head, which was not Susan's, looked cautiously out. "Who is there?"

cried a strange voice; it's some mistake. This is Mrs. Vincent's, this is, and n.o.body's at home. If you don't go away I'll spring the rattle, and call Thieves, thieves--Fire! What do you mean coming rousing folks like this in the dead of night?"

"Oh, Williams, are you there? Thank G.o.d!--then all is well," said Mrs.

Vincent, clasping her hands. "It is I--you need not be afraid--I and my son: don't disturb Miss Susan, since she has not heard us--but come down, and let us in;--don't disturb my daughter. It is I--don't you know my voice?"

"Good Lord!" cried the speaker at the window; then in a different tone, "I'm coming, ma'am--I'm coming." Instinctively, without knowing why, Vincent drew his mother's arm within his own, and held her fast.

Instinctively the widow clung to him, and kept herself erect by his aid.

They did not say a word--no advices now about composing his countenance.

Mrs. Vincent's face was ghastly, had there been any light to see it. She went sheer forward when the door was open, as though neither her eyes nor person were susceptible of any other motion. An inexpressible air of desolation upon the cottage parlour, where everything looked far too trim and orderly for recent domestic occupation, brought to a climax all the fanciful suggestions which had been tormenting Vincent. He called out his sister's name in an involuntary outburst of dread and excitement, "Susan! Susan!" The words pealed into the midnight echoes--but there was no Susan to answer to the call.

"It is G.o.d that keeps her asleep to keep her happy," said his mother, with her white lips. She dropt from his arm upon the sofa in a dreadful pause of determination, facing them with wide-open eyes--daring them to undeceive her--resolute not to hear the terrible truth, which already in her heart she knew. "Susan is asleep, asleep!" she cried, in a terrible idiocy of despair, always facing the frightened woman before her with those eyes which knew better, but would not be undeceived. The shivering midnight, the mother's dreadful looks, the sudden waking to all this fright and wonder, were too much for the terrified guardian of the house. She fell on her knees at the widow's feet.

"Oh, Lord! Miss Susan's gone! I'd have kep her if I had been here. I'd have said her mamma would never send no gentleman but Mr. Arthur to fetch her away. But she's gone. Good Lord! it's killed my missis--I knew it would kill my missis. Oh, good Lord! good Lord! Run for a doctor, Mr.

Arthur; if the missis is gone, what shall we do?"

Vincent threw the frightened creature off with a savage carelessness of which he was quite unconscious, and raised his mother in his arms. She had fallen back in a dreary momentary fit which was not fainting--her eyes fluttering under their half-closed lids, her lips moving with sounds that did not come. The shock had struck her as such shocks strike the mortal frame when it grows old. When sound burst at last from the moving lips, it was in a babble that mocked all her efforts to speak.

But she was not unconscious of the sudden misery. Her eyes wandered about, taking in everything around her, and at last fixed upon a letter lying half-open on Susan's work-table, almost the only token of disorder or agitation in the trim little room. The first sign of revival she showed was pointing at it with a doubtful but impatient gesture. Before she could make them understand what she meant, that "quick temper" of which Mrs. Vincent accused herself blazed up in the widow's eyes. She raised herself erect out of her son's arms, and seized the paper. It was Vincent's letter to his sister, written from London after he had failed in his inquiries about Mr. Fordham. In the light of this dreadful midnight the young man himself perceived how alarming and peremptory were its brief injunctions. "Don't write to Mr. Fordham again till my mother's return; probably I shall bring her home: we have something to say to you on this subject, and in the mean time be sure you do as I tell you." Mrs. Vincent gradually recovered herself as she read this; she said it over under her breath, getting back the use of her speech.

There was not much explanation in it, yet it seemed to take the place, in the mother's confused faculties, of an apology for Susan. "She was frightened," said Mrs. Vincent, slowly, with strange twitches about her lips--"she was frightened." That was all her mind could take in at once.

Afterwards, minute by minute, she raised herself up, and came to self-command and composure. Only as she recovered did the truth reveal itself clearly even to Vincent, who, after the first shock, had been occupied entirely by his mother. The young man's head throbbed and tingled as if with blows. As she sat up and gazed at him with her own recovered looks, through the dim ice-cold atmosphere, lighted faintly with one candle, they both woke up to the reality of their position. The shock of the discovery was over--Susan was gone; but where, and with whom? There was still something to hope, if everything to fear.

"She is gone to her aunt Alice," said Mrs. Vincent, once more looking full in the eyes of the woman who had been left in charge of the house, and who stood shivering with cold and agitation, winding and unwinding round her a thin shawl in which she had wrapped up her arms. "She has gone to her aunt Alice--she was frightened, and thought something had happened. To-morrow we can go and bring her home."

"Oh, good Lord! No; she ain't there," cried the frightened witness, half inaudible with her chattering teeth.

"Or to Mrs. Hastings at the farm. Susan knows what friends I can trust her to. Arthur, dear, let us go to bed. It's uncomfortable, but you won't mind for one night," said the widow, with a gasp, rising up and sitting down again. She dared not trust herself to hear any explanation, yet all the time fixed with devouring eyes upon the face of the woman whom she would not suffer to speak.

"Mother, for Heaven's sake let us understand it; let her speak--let us know. Where has Susan gone? Speak out; never mind interruptions. Where is my sister?" cried Vincent, grasping the terrified woman by the arm.

"Oh Lord! If the missis wouldn't look at me like that! I ain't to blame!" cried Williams, piteously. "It was the day afore yesterday as the ladies came. I come up to help Mary with the beds. There was the old lady as had on a brown bonnet and the young miss in the blue veil----"

Vincent uttered a sudden exclamation, and looked at his mother; but she would not meet his eyes--would not acknowledge any recognition of that fatal piece of gauze. She gave a little gasp, sitting bolt upright, holding fast by the back of a chair, but kept her eyes steadily and sternly upon the woman's face.

"We tidied the best room for the lady, and Miss Susan's little closet; and Mary had out the best sheets, for she says----"

"Mary--where's Mary?" cried Mrs. Vincent, suddenly.

"I know no more nor a babe," cried Williams, wringing her hands. "She's along with Miss Susan--wherever that may be--and the one in the blue veil."

"Go on, go on!" cried Vincent.