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Salem Chapel. Volume 2/2
“But Susan – you are not deceiving us – Susan is – ” said Vincent, with sudden alarm.
“She is asleep,” said Dr. Rider; “and, if I can, I will remain till she wakes; it is life or death.”
They parted thus – the doctor to the little room below-stairs, where Vincent’s dinner awaited him, and the young minister himself to his own room, where he went into the darkness with a kind of bewildered uncertainty and incomprehension of the events about him. To think that this day, with all its strange encounters and unexpected incidents, was Sunday, as he suddenly remembered it to be – that this morning he had preached, and this evening had to preach again, completed in Vincent’s mind the utter chaos and disturbance of ordinary life. It struck him dumb to remember that by-and-by he must again ascend the pulpit, and go through all his duties. Was he an impostor, doing all this mechanically? He debated the question dully in his own mind, as he sat too much bewildered to do anything else in the dark in his bed-chamber, pondering with a certain confused gravity and consolation over all that had happened. But faculties, which are confused by sudden comfort and relief, are very different from faculties obscured and confounded by suffering. He sat vaguely in the dark, wondering over his strange position. This morning, even in the height of his despair, he had at least some idea what he was going to do in that pulpit of Salem. It was a sacrifice – a martyrdom to accomplish – a wild outcry and complaint to pour forth to the world. This evening he sat wasting the precious moments in the soft darkness, without knowing a word of what he was to say – without being able to realise the fact, that by-and-by he should have to go out through the sharp air echoing with church-bells – to see once more all those watchful faces turned upon him, and to communicate such instruction as was in him to his flock. A sense of exhaustion and satisfaction was in Vincent’s heart. He sat listless in a vague comfort and weariness, his head throbbing with the fumes of his past excitement, yet not aching. It was only now that he realised the rolling off from his head of this dark cloud of horror and shame. Susan was recovering – Susan was innocent. He became aware of the facts much in the same way as his mother became aware of them ere she dropped to sleep in the blessed darkness of the adjoining room. Confused as he was, with his brain still full of the pulsations of the past, he was so far conscious of what had happened. He sat in his reverie, regardless of the time, and everything else that he ought to have attended to. The little maid came and knocked at his door to say his dinner had been waiting for an hour, and he answered, “Yes; he was coming,” but sat still in the darkness. Then the landlady herself, compunctious, beginning to feel the thrills of returning comfort which had entered her house, came tapping softly to say it was near six, and wouldn’t Mr. Vincent take something before it was time for chapel? Mr. Vincent said “Yes” again, but did not move; and it was only when he heard the church-bells tingling into the night air that he got up at last, and, stealing first to the door of Susan’s room, where he ascertained that she still slept, and then to his mother’s, where he could hear her soft regular breathing in the darkness, he went away in an indescribably exalted condition of mind to Salem and his duty. There is a kind of weakness incident to excitement of mind and neglect of body, which is akin to the ecstatic state in which men dream dreams and see visions. Vincent was in that condition to-night. He was not careful what anybody would say or think; he no longer pictured to himself the up-turned faces in Salem, all conscious of the tragedy which was connected with his name. The sense of deliverance in his heart emancipated him, and gave a contrary impulse to his thoughts. In the weakness of an excited and exhausted frame, a certain gleam of the ineffable and miraculous came over the young man. He was again in the world where God stoops down to change with one touch of His finger the whole current of man’s life – the world of childhood, of genius, of faith; that other world, dark sphere of necessity and fate, where nothing could stay the development into dread immortality of the obstinate human intelligence, and where dreary echoes of speculation still questioned whether any change were possible in heart and spirit, or if saving souls were a mere figure of speech, floated away far off over his head, a dark fiction of despair. In this state of mind he went back to the pulpit where, in the morning, he had thrilled his audience with all those wild complications of thought which end in nothing. Salem was again crowded – not a corner of the chapel remained unfilled; and again, many of the more zealous members were driven out of their seats by the influx of the crowd. Vincent, who had no sermon to preach, and nothing except the fulness that was in his heart to say, took up again his subject of the morning. He told his audience with the unpremeditated skill of a natural orator, that while Reason considered all the desperate chances, and concluded that wonderful work impossible, God, with the lifting of His countenance, with the touch of His power, made the darkness light before Him, and changed the very earth and heavens around the wondering soul. Lifted out of the region of reasonableness himself, he explained to his astonished audience how Reason halts in her conclusions, how miracle and wonder are of all occurrences the most natural, and how, between God and man, there are no boundaries of possibility. It was a strange sermon, without any text or divisions, irregular in its form, sometimes broken in its utterance; but the man who spoke was in a “rapture” – a state of fasting and ecstasy. He saw indistinctly that there were glistening eyes in the crowd, and felt what was somewhat an unusual consciousness – that his heart had made communications to other hearts in his audience almost without his knowing it; but he did not observe that nobody came to the vestry to congratulate him, that Tozer looked disturbed, and that the deacons averted their benign countenances. When he had done his work, he went home without waiting to talk to anybody – without, indeed, thinking any more of Salem – through the crowd, in the darkness, passing group after group in earnest discussion of the minister. He went back still in that exalted condition of mind, unaware that he passed Mrs. Tozer and Phœbe, who were much disposed to join him – and was in his own house sooner than most of his congregation. All within was quiet, lost in the most grateful and profound stillness. Sleep seemed to brood over the delivered house. Vincent spoke to the doctor, who still waited, and whose hopes were rising higher and higher, and then ate something, and said his prayers, and went to rest like a child. The family, so worn out with labour, and trial, and sorrow, slept profoundly under the quiet stars. Those hard heavens, from which an indifferent God saw the Innocents murdered and made no sign, had melted into the sweet natural firmament, above which the great Father watches unwearied. The sudden change was more than mere deliverance to the young Nonconformist. He slept and took rest in the sweet surprise and thankfulness of his soul. His life and heart, still young and incapable of despair, had got back out of hard anguishes and miseries which no one could soften, to the sweet miraculous world in which circumstances are always changing, and God interferes for ever.
CHAPTER X
WHEN Vincent awoke next morning, his mother was standing by his bedside. Her eyes were dewy and moist, a faint tinge of colour was on her sweet old cheek, and her steps tottered a little as she came up to his bed, and stooped to kiss him. “Oh, Arthur, my dear boy, she knows me!” said Mrs. Vincent, putting up her hand to her eyes. “I must not be away from her a moment, but I could not resist coming to tell you. She knows me, dear. Make haste and dress, and come and see your sister, Arthur; and I will give orders about your breakfast as I go back. My dear, I know you have been anxious,” said the widow, putting back his hair fondly with the soft little hand which still trembled; “though men have not the way of showing it, I know you have been very anxious. You looked quite pale and thin as you slept. But I must speak to the landlady now and see about your food. Come to Susan’s room as soon as you are dressed, and I will order your breakfast, my dear boy,” said his mother, going softly out again, with her tender little figure all beautified and trembling with joy. Mrs. Vincent met the landlady near the door, and stopped to speak to her. “My daughter is a great deal better,” said the minister’s mother. “I have been so anxious, I have never been able to thank you as I ought to have done for your kindness and attention. We have been as quiet as if we had been at home. We will all remember your attention, though I have never been able to thank you before; and I am sure it is very gratifying to my son to think it is one of his own flock who has taken so much pains for us. Mr. Vincent has been very anxious about his sister,” continued the widow; “I fear he has not been taking his food, nor keeping his regular time for meals. You would oblige me very much if you would try to have something nice for his breakfast. We were all much shaken yesterday, being so anxious; – some new-laid eggs perhaps – though I know they are scarce in a town at this time of the year – or anything you can think of that will tempt him to eat. I would not say so much,” said Mrs. Vincent, smiling upon the astonished landlady, and leaning to support her own weakness on the rail of the passage upon which the staircase opened, “but that I know your kind interest in your minister. I am sure you will take all the pains you can to get him to attend to his precious health. Thank you. I am very much obliged.”
With this the little woman passed on, feeling indeed too weak to stand longer; and leaving the landlady, who had intended to mingle some statement of her own grievances with her congratulations, with the plea quietly taken out of her hands, and the entire matter disposed of. Mrs. Vincent was moving back again to the sick-room, when the door opened down-stairs, and some one asked for Mr. Vincent, and came up hurriedly. The minister’s mother recognised Tozer’s voice, and made a pause. She was glad of the opportunity to make sure that all was well in the flock. She leant over the railing to shake hands with the butterman, moved to a little effusion of thankfulness by the recollection of the state of anxiety she was in when she saw him last.
“My son is not up yet,” she said. “We were very anxious yesterday. It was the crisis of the fever, and everything depended upon it. I daresay you would see how anxious Mr. Vincent was; but, thank heaven, now all is going on well.”
“You see, ma’am,” said Tozer, “it must have all been on the nerves, and to be sure there ain’t nothing more likely to be serviceable than good news. It’s in the paper this morning. As soon as I see it, I said to my missis, ‘This is why the minister was so pecooliar yesterday.’ I divined it in a moment, ma’am; though it wasn’t to say prudent, Mrs. Vincent, and not as you would have advised no more nor myself, to fly off like that out of chapel, without as much as shaking hands with one o’ the deacons. But I make allowances, I do; and when I see it in the paper, I said to my missis, ‘It’s all along o’ this Mr. Vincent was so queer.’ I don’t doubt as it’ll be quite looked over, and thought no more of, when it’s known what’s the news.”
“What news?” said Mrs. Vincent, faintly, holding fast by the railing. “You mean the news of my dear child’s recovery,” she added, after a breathless pause. “Have they put it in the papers? I am sure it is very good, but I never heard of such a thing before. She has been very ill to be sure – but most people are very ill once in their lives,” said the widow, gasping a little for breath, and fixing her eyes upon the paper which Tozer held in his hand.
“Poor soul!” said the deacon, compassionately, “it ain’t no wonder, considering all things. Phœbe would have come the very first day to say, Could she be of any use? but her mother wasn’t agreeable. Women has their own ways of managing; but they’ll both come to-day, now all’s cleared up, if you’ll excuse me. And now, ma’am, I’ll go on to the minister, and see if there’s anything as he’d like me to do, for Pigeon and the rest was put out, there’s no denying of it; but if things is set straight directly, what with this news, and what with them sermons yesterday, I don’t think as it’ll do no harm. I said to him, as this Sunday was half the battle,” said the worthy butterman, reflectively; “and he did his best – I wouldn’t say as he didn’t do his best; and I’m not the man as will forsake my pastor when he’s in trouble. Good-morning, ma’am; and my best respects to miss, and I hope as she’ll soon be well again. There ain’t no man as could rejoice more nor me at this news.”
Tozer went on to Vincent’s room, at the door of which the minister had appeared summoning him with some impatience and anxiety. “News? what news?” said Mrs. Vincent, faintly to herself, as she held by the rail and felt the light forsaking her eyes in a new mist of sudden dread. She caught the look of the landlady at that moment, a look of half-pity, curiosity, and knowledge, which startled her back to her defences. With sudden firmness she gathered herself together, and went on to the sick-room, leaving behind her, as she closed the door, the whole troubled world, which seemed to know better about her most intimate affairs than she did; and those newspapers, which somehow mentioned Susan’s name, that sweet maiden name which it was desecration to see so much as named in print. Rather the widow carried that uneasy world in with her to the sick-room which she had left a few minutes before in all the effusion of unhoped-for joy. Everything still was not well though Susan was getting better. She sat down by the bedside where Susan lay languid and pale, showing the change in her by little more than quietness and a faint recognition of her mother, and in her troubled heart began to look the new state of affairs in the face, and to make up her mind that more of the causes of Susan’s illness than she had supposed known, must have become public. And then Arthur and his flock, that flock which he evidently had somehow affronted on the previous day. Mrs. Vincent pondered with all the natural distrust of a woman over Arthur’s imprudence. She almost chafed at her necessary confinement by her daughter’s bedside; if she herself, who had been a minister’s wife for thirty years, and knew the ways of a congregation, and how it must be managed, could only get into the field to bring her son out of the difficult passages which she had no faith in his own power to steer through! So the poor mother experienced how, when absorbing grief is removed, a host of complicated anxieties hasten in to fill up its place. She was no longer bowed down under an overwhelming dread, but she was consumed by restless desires to be doing – cravings to know all – fears for what might at the moment be happening out of her range and influence. What might Arthur, always incautious, be confiding to Tozer even now? – perhaps telling him those “private affairs” which the widow would have defended against exposure with her very life – perhaps chafing at Salem and rejecting that yoke which, being a minister, he must bear. It was all Mrs. Vincent could do to keep herself still on her chair, and to maintain that quietness which was necessary for Susan. If only she could have been there to soften his impatience and make the best of his unnecessary confidences! Many a time before this, the widow had been compelled to submit to that female tribulation – to be shut up apart, and leave the great events outside to be transacted by those incautious masculine hands, in which, at the bottom of her heart, a woman seldom has perfect confidence when her own supervising influence is withdrawn. Mrs. Vincent felt instinctively that Arthur would commit himself as she sat resigned but troubled by Susan’s bed.
Tozer went directly to the door of Vincent’s room, where the minister, only half-dressed, but much alarmed to see the colloquy which was going on between his mother and the butterman, was waiting for him. The deacon squeezed the young man’s hand with a hearty pressure. His aspect was so fatherly and confidential, that it brought back to the mind of the young Nonconformist a certain rueful half-comic recollection of the suppers in the back parlour, and all the old troubles of the pastor of Salem, which heavier shadows had driven out of his mind. Tozer held up triumphantly the paper in his hand.
“You’ve seen it, sir?” said the butterman; “first thing I did this morning was to look up whether there wasn’t nothing about it in the latest intelligence; for the ‘Gazette’ has been very particular, knowing, at Carlingford, folks would be interested – and here it is sure enough, Mr. Vincent; and we nigh gave three cheers, me and the lads in the shop.”
To this Vincent listened with a darkening brow and an impatience which he did not attempt to conceal. He took the paper with again that quick sense of the intolerable which prompted him to tear the innocent broadsheet in pieces and tread it under foot. The ‘Gazette’ contained, with a heading in large characters, the following paragraph: —
“THE DOVER TRAGEDY
“Our reader will be glad to hear that the unfortunate young lady whose name has been so unhappily mixed up in this mysterious affair, is likely to be fully exonerated from the charge rashly brought against her. In the deposition of the wounded man, which was taken late on Saturday night, by Mr. Everett, the stipendiary magistrate of Dover, he distinctly declares that Miss – was not the party who fired the pistol, nor in any way connected with it – that she had accompanied his daughter merely as companion on a hasty journey, and that, in short, instead of the romantic connection supposed to subsist between the parties, with all the passions of love and revenge naturally involved, the ties between them were of the simplest and most temporary character. We are grieved to add, that the fright and horror of her awful position had overpowered Miss – some time before this deposition was made, and brought on a brain-fever, which, of course, made the unfortunate young lady, who is understood to possess great personal attractions, quite unable to explain the suspicious circumstances surrounding her. We have now only to congratulate her respectable family and friends on her exoneration from a very shocking charge, and hope her innocence will soon be confirmed by full legal acquittal. Our readers will find Colonel Mildmay’s deposition on another page. It will be perceived that he obstinately refuses to indicate who was the real perpetrator of the deed. Suspicion has been directed to his groom, who accompanied him, in whom, however, the wounded man seems to repose perfect confidence. He is still in a precarious state, but little doubt is entertained of his ultimate recovery.”
“There, Mr. Vincent, that’s gratifying, that is,” said Tozer, as Vincent laid down the paper; “and I come over directly I see it, to let you know. And I come to say besides,” continued the butterman with some diffidence, “as I think if you and me was to go off to Mr. Brown the solicitor, and give him his orders as he was to put in bail for Miss – or anything else as might be necessary – not meaning to use no disagreeable words, as there ain’t no occasion now,” said the good deacon; “but only to make it plain, as you and me is responsible for her, if so be as she was ever to be called for again. It would be the thing to do, that would, sir, if you take my advice. It ain’t altogether my own notion, but was put into my head by one as knows. The gentleman as come here from Dover inquiring into the business was the one as suggested it to me. He turned out uncommon obliging, and wasn’t to say no trouble in the house; and when word came as the Colonel wasn’t dead, he went away as civil as could be. I’ll go with you cheerful to Mr. Brown, if you’ll take my advice, afore Mrs. Vincent gets moving about again, or the young lady knows what’s a-going on; that’s what I’d do, sir, if it was me.”
Vincent grasped the exultant butterman’s hand in an overflow of gratitude and compunction. “I shall never forget your kindness,” he said, with a little tremor in his voice. “You have been a true friend. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will go at once, and accept this other great kindness from you. I shall never forget what I owe to you as long as I live.”
“I never was the man to forsake my pastor in trouble – not to say a young man like you as is a credit to the connection, and the best preacher I may say as I ever heard in Salem,” said Tozer, with effusion, returning the grasp; “but we ain’t a-going a step till you’ve had your breakfast. Your good mother, Mrs. Vincent, as is a real lady, sir, and would never advise you different from what I would myself, being for your own interests, would have little opinion of me if I took you out on a Monday mornin’ after your labours without so much as a bit o’ breakfast to sustain you. I’ll sit by you while you’re a-eating of your bacon. There’s a deal to consider of concerning Salem as I couldn’t well bring before you as long as you were in such trouble. Them were uncommon sermons, sir, yesterday, I don’t know as I ever heard anything as was just to be compared with the mornin’ discourse, and most of the flock was of my opinion; but what is the good of standing up for the pastor – I ask you candid, Mr. Vincent – when he’ll not take no pains to keep things square? I’m speaking plain, for you can’t mistake me as it’s anything but your own interests I am a-thinking of. We was all marching in, deacons and committee and all, to say as we was grateful to you for your instructions, and wishing you well out of your trouble – and I was in great hopes as matters might have been made up – when behold, what we finds was the vestry empty and the pastor gone! Now, I ain’t a-finding fault. Them news would explain anything; but I don’t deny as Pigeon and the rest was put out; and if you’ll be guided by one as wishes you well, Mr. Vincent, when you’ve done our business as is most important of all, you’ll go and make some visits, sir, and make yourself agreeable, if you’ll excuse me. It ain’t with no selfish thoughts as I speak,” said Tozer, energetically. “It’s not like asking of you to come a-visiting to me, nor setting myself forward as the minister’s great friend – though we was remarking as the pastor was unknown in our house this fortnight and more – but it’s for peace and union, Mr. Vincent, and the good of the flock, sir, and to keep – as your good mother well knows ain’t easy in a congregation – all things straight.”
When this little peroration was delivered, Vincent was seated at table, making what he could of the breakfast, in which both his mother and Tozer had interested themselves. It was with a little effort that the young man accepted this advice as the character and intentions of his adviser deserved. He swallowed what was unpalatable in the counsel, and received the suggestion “in as sweet a frame of mind as I could wish to see,” as Tozer afterwards described.
“I will go and make myself agreeable,” said the minister, with a smile. “Thank heaven! it is not so impossible to-day as it might have been yesterday; I left the chapel so hurriedly, because – ”
“I understand, sir,” said Tozer, benevolently interposing as Vincent paused, finding explanation impossible. “Pigeon and the rest was put out, as I say, more nor I could see was reasonable – not as Pigeon is a man that knows his own mind. It’s the women as want the most managing. Now, Mr. Vincent, I’m ready, sir, if you are, and we won’t lose no time.”
Before going out, however, Vincent went to his sister’s room. She was lying in an utter quietness which went to his heart; – silent, no longer uttering the wild fancies of a disordered brain, recovering, as the doctor thought; but stretched upon her white couch, marble white, without any inclination apparently to lift the heavy lids of her eyes, or to notice anything that passed before her – a very sad sight to see. By her sat her mother, in a very different condition, anxious, looking into Arthur’s eyes, whispering counsels in his ears. “Oh, my dear boy, be very careful,” said Mrs. Vincent; “your dear papa always said that a minister’s flock was his first duty; and now that Susan is getting better, O Arthur! you must not let people talk about your sister; – and have patience, O have patience, dear!” This was said in wistful whispers, with looks which only half confided in Arthur’s prudence; and the widow sank into her chair when he left her, folding her hands in a little agony of self-restraint and compulsory quietness. She felt equal for it herself, if she had been at liberty to go out upon the flock once more in Arthur’s cause; but who could tell how he might commit himself, he who was a young man, and took his own way, and did not know, as Tozer said, how to keep all things straight? When Mrs. Vincent thought of her son in personal conflict with Mrs. Pigeon, she lost faith in Arthur. She herself might have conquered that difficult adversary, but what weapons had he to bring forth against the deacon’s wife, he who was only a minister and a man?
