“WHAT has happened? For heaven’s sake tell me, mother,” cried Vincent, as she sank back, wiping her eyes, and altogether overpowered, half with the trouble which he did not know, half with the joy of seeing him again—“say it out at once, and don’t keep me in this dreadful suspense. Susan? She is not married? What is wrong?”
“Oh, my dear boy!” said Mrs. Vincent, recovering herself, but still trembling in her agitation—“oh, my affectionate boy, always thinking of us in his good heart! No, dear. It’s—it’s nothing particular happened. Let me compose myself a little, Arthur, and take breath.”
“But, Susan?” cried the excited young man.
“Susan, poor dear!—she is very well; and—and very happy up to this moment, my darling boy,” said Mrs. Vincent, “though whether she ought to be happy under the circumstances—or whether it’s only a cruel trick—or whether I haven’t been foolish and precipitate—but, my dear, what could I do but come to you, Arthur? I could not have kept it from her if I had stayed an hour longer at home. And to put such a dreadful suspicion into her head, when it might be all a falsehood, would have only been killing her; and, my dear boy, now I see your face again, I’m not so frightened—and surely it can be cleared up, and all will be well.”
Vincent, whose anxiety conquered his impatience, even while exciting it, kneeled down by his mother’s side and took her hands, which still trembled, into his own. “Mother, think that I am very anxious; that I don’t know what you are referring to; and that the sudden sight of you has filled me with all sort of terrors—for I know you would not lightly take such a journey all by yourself,” said the young man, growing still more anxious as he thought of it—“and try to collect your thoughts and tell me what is wrong.”
His mother drew one of her hands out of his, laid it on his head, and fondly smoothed back his hair. “My dear good son! you were always so sensible—I wish you had never left us,” she said, with a little groan; “and indeed it was a great thought to undertake such a journey; and since I came here, Arthur, I have felt so flurried and strange, that I have not, as you see, even taken off my bonnet; but I think now you’ve come, dear, if you would ring the bell and order up the tea? When I see you, and see you looking so well, Arthur, it seems as if things could never be so bad, you know. My dear,” she said at last, with a little quiver in her voice, stopping and looking at him with a kind of nervous alarm, “it was about Mr. Fordham, you may be sure.”
“Tea directly,” said Vincent to the little maid, who appeared just at this crisis, and who was in her turn alarmed by the brief and peremptory order.
“What about Mr. Fordham?” he said, helping his mother to take off the cloak and warm wraps in which she had been sitting, in her nervous tremor and agitation, while she waited his return.
“Oh, my dear, my dear,” cried poor Mrs. Vincent, wringing her hands, “if he should not turn out as he ought, how can I ever forgive myself? I had a kind of warning in my mind the first time he came to the house, and I have always dreamt such uncomfortable dreams of him, Arthur. Oh! if you only could have seen him, my dear boy! But he was such a gentleman, and had such ways. I am sure he must have mixed in the very highest society—and he seemed so to appreciate Susan—not only to be in love with her, you know, my dear, as any young man might, but to really appreciate my sweet girl. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, if he should turn out badly, it will kill me, for my Susan will break her heart.”
“Mother, you drive me frantic. What has he done?” cried poor Vincent.
“He has done nothing, my dear, that I know of. It is not him, Arthur, for he has been gone for a month, arranging his affairs, you know, before the wedding, and writes Susan regularly and beautiful letters. It is a dreadful scrawl I got last night. I have it in my pocket-book. It came by the last post when Susan was out, thank heaven. I’ll show it you presently, my dear, as soon as I can find it, but I have so many papers in my pocket-book. She saw directly when she came in that something had happened, and oh, Arthur, it was so hard to keep it from her. I don’t know when I have kept anything from her before. I can’t tell how we got through the night. But this morning I made up the most artful story I could—here is the dreadful letter, my dear, at last—about being determined to see you, and making sure that you were taking care of yourself; for she knew as well as I did how negligent you always are about wet feet. Are you sure your feet are dry now, Arthur? Yes, my dear boy, it makes me very uncomfortable. You don’t wonder to see your poor mother here, now, after that?”
The letter which Vincent got meanwhile, and anxiously read, was as follows—the handwriting very mean, with a little tremor in it, which seemed to infer that the writer was an old man:—
“MADAM,—Though I am but a poor man, I can’t abear to see wrong going on, and do nothink to stop it. Madam, I beg of you to excuse me, as am unknown to you, and as can’t sign my honest name to it like a man. This is the only way as I can give you a word of warning. Don’t let the young lady marry him as she’s agoing to, not if her heart should break first. Don’t have nothink to do with Mr. Fordham. That’s not his right name, and he has got a wife living—and this I say is true, as sure as I have to answer at the judgment;—and I say to you as a friend, Stop it, stop it! Don’t let it go on a step, if you vally the young lady’s charackter and her life. I don’t add no more, because that’s all I dare say, being only a servant; but I hope it’s enough to save the poor young lady out of his clutches, as is a man that goeth about seeking whom he may devour.—From a well-wisher, though
A STRANGER.”
Mrs. Vincent’s mind was easier when this epistle was out of her hands. She stood up before the mirror to take off her bonnet, and put her cap tidy; she glided across the room to take up the shawl and cloak which her son had flung upon the little sofa anyhow, and to fold them and lay them together on a chair. Then the trim little figure approached the table, on which stood a dimly burning lamp, which smoked as lamps will when they have it all their own way. Mrs. Vincent turned down the light a little, and then proceeded to remove the globe and chimney by way of seeing what was wrong—bringing her own anxious patient face, still retaining many traces of the sweet comeliness which had almost reached the length of beauty in her daughter, into the full illumination of the smoky blaze. Notwithstanding the smoke, the presence of that little woman made the strangest difference in the room. She took note of various evidences of litter and untidiness with her mind’s eye as she examined the lamp. She had drawn a long breath of relief when she put the letter into Arthur’s hand. The sense of lightened responsibility seemed almost to relieve her anxiety as well. She held the chimney of the lamp in her hand, when an exclamation from her son called her back to the consideration of that grievous question. She turned to him with a sudden deepening of all the lines in her face.
“Oh, Arthur dear! don’t you think it may be an enemy? don’t you think it looks like some cruel trick? You don’t believe it’s true?”
“Mother, have you an enemy in the world?” cried Vincent, with an almost bitter affectionateness. “Is there anybody living that would take pleasure in wounding you?”
“No, dear; but Mr. Fordham might have one,” said the widow. “He is not like you or your dear father, Arthur. He looks as if he might have been in the army, and had seen a great deal of life. That is what has been a great consolation to me. A man like that, you know, dear, is sure to have enemies; so very different from our quiet way of life,” said Mrs. Vincent, holding up the chimney of the lamp, and standing a little higher than her natural five feet, with a simple consciousness of that grandeur of experience: “some one that wished him ill might have got some one else to write the letter. Hush, Arthur, here is the maid with the tea.”
The maid with the tea pushed in, bearing her tray into a scene which looked very strange to her awakened curiosity. The minister stood before the fire with the letter in his hand, narrowly examining it, seal, post-mark, handwriting, even paper. He did not look like the same man who had come up-stairs three steps at a time, in the glow and exhilaration of hope, scarcely half an hour ago. His teeth were set, and his face pale. On the table the smoky lamp blazed into the dim air, unregulated by the chimney, which Mrs. Vincent was nervously rubbing with her handkerchief before she put it on. The little maid, with her round eyes, set down the tray upon the table with an answering thrill of excitement and curiosity. There was “somethink to do” with the minister and his unexpected visitor. Vincent himself took no notice of the girl; but his mother, with feminine instinct, proceeded to disarm this possible observer. Mrs. Vincent knew well, by long experience, that when the landlady happens to be one of the flock, it is as well that the pastor should keep the little shocks and crises of his existence studiously to himself.
“Does it always smoke?” said the gentle Jesuit, addressing the little maid.
The effect of so sudden and discomposing a question, at a moment when the person addressed was staring with all her soul at the minister, open-mouthed and open-eyed, may be better imagined than described. The girl gave a start and stifled exclamation, and made all the cups rattle on the tray as she set it down. Did what smoke?—the chimney, or the minister, or the landlady’s husband down-stairs?
“Does it always smoke?” repeated Mrs. Vincent, calmly, putting on the chimney. “I don’t think it would if you were very exact in putting this on. Look here: always at this height, don’t you see? and now it burns perfectly well.”
“Yes, ma’am; I’ll tell missis, ma’am,” said the girl, backing out, with some alarm. Mrs. Vincent sat down at the table with all the satisfaction of success and conscious virtue. Her son, for his part, flung himself into the easy-chair which she had given up, and stared at her with an impatience and wonder which he could not restrain.
“To think you should talk about the lamp at such a time, or notice it at all, indeed, if it smoked like fifty chimneys!” he exclaimed, with a tone of annoyance; “why, mother, this is life or death.”
“Yes, yes, my dear!” said the mother, a little mortified in her turn: “but it does not do to let strangers see when you are in trouble. Oh, Arthur, my own boy, you must not get into any difficulty here. I know what gossip is in a congregation; you never would bear half of what your poor dear papa did,” said the widow, with tears in her eyes, laying her soft old fingers upon the young man’s impatient hand. “You have more of my quick temper, Arthur; and whatever you do, dear, you must not expose yourself to be talked of. You are all we have in the world. You must be your sister’s protector; for oh, if this should be true, what a poor protector her mother has been! And, dear boy, tell me, what are we to do?”
“Had he any friends?” asked Vincent, half sullenly; for he did feel an instinctive desire to blame somebody, and nobody seemed so blamable as the mother, who had admitted a doubtful person into her house. “Did he know anybody—in Lonsdale, or anywhere? Did he never speak of his friends?”
“He had been living abroad,” said Mrs. Vincent, slowly. “He talked of gentlemen sometimes, at Baden, and Homburg, and such places. I am afraid you would think it very silly, and—and perhaps wrong, Arthur; but he seemed to know so much of the world—so different from our quiet way of life—that being so nice and good and refined himself with it all—I am afraid it was rather an attraction to Susan. It was so different to what she was used with, my dear. We used to think a man who had seen so much, and known so many temptations, and kept his nice simple tastes through it all—oh, dear, dear! If it is true, I was never so deceived in all my life.”
“But you have not told me,” said Arthur, morosely, “if he had any friends?”
“Nobody in Lonsdale,” said Mrs. Vincent. “He came to see some young relative at school in the neighbourhood——”
At this point Mrs. Vincent broke off with a half scream, interrupted by a violent start and exclamation from her son, who jumped off his seat, and began to pace up and down the room in an agitation which she could not comprehend. This start entirely overpowered his mother. Her overwrought nerves and feelings relieved themselves in tears. She got up, trembling, approached the young man, put her hand, which shook, through his arm, and implored him, crying softly all the time, to tell her what he feared, what he thought, what was the matter? Poor Vincent’s momentary ill-humour deserted him: he began to realise all the complications of the position; but he could not resist the sight of his mother’s tears. He led her back gently to the easy-chair, poured out for her a cup of the neglected tea, and restrained himself for her sake. It was while she took this much-needed refreshment that he unfolded to her the story of the helpless strangers whom, only the night before, he had committed to her care.
“The mother you shall see for yourself to-morrow. I can’t tell what she is, except a lady, though in the strangest circumstances,” said Vincent. “She has some reason—I cannot tell what—for keeping her child out of the father’s hands. She appealed to me to let her send it to you, because he had been at Lonsdale already, and I could not refuse. His name is Colonel Mildmay; he has been at Lonsdale; did you hear of such a man?”
Mrs. Vincent shook her head—her face grew more and more troubled.
“I don’t know about reasons for keeping a child from its father,” she said, still shaking her head. “My dear, dear boy, I hope no designing woman has got a hold upon you. Why did you start so, Arthur? what had Mr. Fordham to do with the child? Susan would open my letters, of course, and I daresay she will make them very comfortable; but, Arthur dear, though I don’t blame you, it was very imprudent. Is Colonel Mildmay the lady’s husband? or—or what? Dear boy, you should have thought of Susan—Susan, a young girl, must not be mixed up with anybody of doubtful character. It was all your good heart, I know, but it was very imprudent, to be sure.”
Vincent laughed, in a kind of agony of mingled distress, anxiety, and strange momentary amusement. His mother and he were both blaming each other for the same fault. Both of them had equally yielded to kind feelings, and the natural impulse of generous hearts, without any consideration of prudence. But his mistake could not be attended by any consequences a hundredth part so serious as hers.
“In the mean time, we must do something,” he said. “If he has no friends, he has at least an address, I suppose. Susan”—and a flush of indignation and affectionate anger crossed the young man’s face—“Susan, no doubt, writes to the rascal. Susan! my sister! Good heaven!”
“Arthur!” said Mrs. Vincent. “Your dear papa always disapproved of such exclamations: he said they were just a kind of oath, though people did not think so. And you ought not to call him a rascal without proof—indeed, it is very sinful to come to such hasty judgments. Yes, I have got the address written down—it is in my pocket-book. But what shall you do? Will you write to himself, Arthur? or what? To be sure, it would be best to go to him and settle it at once.”
“Oh, mother, have a little prudence now,” cried the afflicted minister; “if he were base enough to propose marriage to Susan (confound him! that’s not an oath—my father himself would have said as much) under such circumstances, don’t you think he has the courage to tell a lie as well? I shall go up to town, and to his address to-morrow, and see what is to be found there. You must rest in the mean time. Writing is out of the question; what is to be done, I must do—and without a moment’s loss of time.”
The mother took his hand again, and put her handkerchief to her eyes—“God bless my dear boy,” she said, with a mother’s tearful admiration—“Oh, what a thing for me, Arthur, that you are grown up and a man, and able to do what is right in such a dreadful difficulty as this! You put me in mind more and more of your dear father when you settle so clearly what is to be done. He was always ready to act when I used to be in a flutter, which was best. And, oh, how good has the Father of the fatherless been to me in giving me such a son!”
“Ah, mother,” said the young minister, “you gave premature thanks before, when you thought the Father of the fatherless had brought poor Susan a happy lot. Do you say the same now?”
“Always the same, Arthur dear,” cried his mother, with tears—“always the same. If it is even so, is it me, do you think, or is it Him that knows best?”
After this the agitation and distress of the first meeting gradually subsided. That mother, with all her generous imprudence and innocence of heart, was, her son well knew, the tenderest, the most indulgent, the most sympathetic of all his friends. Though the little—the very little insight he had obtained into life and the world had made him think himself wiser than she was in some respects, nothing had ever come between them to disturb the boy’s half-adoring, half-protecting love. He bethought himself of providing for her comfort, as she sat looking at him in the easy-chair, with her eyes smiling on him through their tears, patiently sipping the tea, which was a cold and doubtful infusion, nothing like the fragrant lymph of home. He poked the fire till it blazed, and drew her chair towards it, and hunted up a footstool which he had himself kicked out of the way, under the sofa, a month before. When he looked at the dear tender fresh old face opposite to him, in that close white cap which even now, after the long fatiguing journey, looked fresher and purer than other people’s caps and faces look at their best, a thaw came upon the young man’s heart. Nature awoke and yearned in him. A momentary glimpse crossed his vision of a humble happiness long within his reach, which never till now, when it was about to become impossible for ever, had seemed real or practicable, or even desirable before.
“Mother, dear,” said Vincent, with a tremulous smile, “you shall come here, Susan and you, to me; and we shall all be together again—and comfort each other,” he added, with a deeper gravity still, thinking of his own lot.
His mother did not answer in many words. She said, “My own boy!” softly, following him with her eyes. It was hard, even with Susan’s dreadful danger before her, to help being tearfully happy in seeing him again—in being his guest—in realising the full strength of his manhood and independence. She gave herself up to that feeling of maternal pride and consolation as she once more dried the tears which would come, notwithstanding all her efforts. Then he sat down beside her, and resigned himself to that confidential talk which can rarely be but between members of the same family. He had unburdened his mind unconsciously in his letters about Tozer and the deacons; and it cannot be told what a refreshment it was to be able to utter roundly in words his sentiments on all those subjects. The power of saying it out with no greater hindrance than her mild remonstrances, mingled, as they were, with questions which enabled him to complete his sketches, and smiles of amusement at his descriptive powers, put him actually in better humour with Salem. He felt remorseful and charitable after he had said his worst.
“And are you sure, dear,” said Mrs. Vincent, at last resuming the subject nearest her heart, “that you can go away to-morrow without neglecting any duty? You must not neglect a duty, Arthur—not even for Susan’s sake. Whatever happens to us, you must keep right.”
“I have no duty to detain me,” said Vincent, hastily. Then a sudden glow came over the young man, a flush of happiness which stole upon him like a thief, and brightened his own personal firmament with a secret unacknowledgable delight; “but I must return early,” he added, with a momentary hesitation—“for if you won’t think it unkind to leave you, mother, I am engaged to dinner. I should scarcely like to miss it,” he concluded, after another pause, tying knots in his handkerchief, and taking care not to look at her as he spoke.
“To dinner, Arthur? I thought your people only gave teas,” said Mrs. Vincent, with a smile.
“The Salem people do; but this—is not one of the Salem people,” said the minister, still hesitating. “In fact, it would be ungracious of me not to go, and cowardly, too—for that curate, I believe, is to meet me—and Lady Western would naturally think——”
“Lady Western!” said Mrs. Vincent, with irrestrainable pleasure; “is that one of the great people in Carlingford?” The good woman wiped her eyes again with the very tenderest and purest demonstration of that adoration of rank which is said to be an English instinct. “I don’t mean to be foolish, dear,” she said, apologetically; “I know these distinctions of society are not worth your caring about; but to see my Arthur appreciated as he should be, is——” She could not find words to say what it was—she wound up with a little sob. What with trouble and anxiety, and pride and delight, and bodily fatigue added to all, tears came easiest that night.
Vincent did not say whether or not these distinctions of society were worth caring about. He sat abstractedly, untying the knots in his handkerchief, with a faint smile on his face. Then, while that pleasurable glow remained, he escorted his mother to his own sleeping-room, which he had given up to her, and saw that her fire burned brightly, and that all was comfortable. When he returned to poke his solitary fire, it was some time before he took out the letter which had disturbed his peace. The smile died away first by imperceptible degrees from his face. He gradually erected himself out of the meditative lounge into which he had fallen; then, with a little start, as if throwing dreams away, he took out and examined the letter. The more he looked at it, the graver and deeper became the anxiety in his face. It had every appearance of being genuine in its bad writing and doubtful spelling. And Vincent started again with an unexplainable thrill of alarm when he thought how utterly unprotected his mother’s sudden journey had left that little house in Lonsdale. Susan had no warning, no safeguard. He started up in momentary fright, but as suddenly sat down again with a certain indignation at his own thoughts. Nobody could carry her off, or do any act of violence; and as for taking advantage of her solitude, Susan, a straightforward, simple-minded English girl, was safe in her own pure sense of right.