EARLY morning, but black as midnight; bitter cold, if bitterer cold could be, than that to which they entered when they first came to the deserted house; the little parlour, oh, so woefully trim and tidy, with the fire laid ready for lighting, which even the mother, anxious about her son, had not had the heart to light; the candle on the table between them lighting dimly this speechless interval; some shawls laid ready to take with them when they went back again to the earliest train; Mrs. Vincent sitting by with her bonnet on, and its veil drooping half over her pale face, sometimes rousing up to cast hidden looks of anxiety at her son, sometimes painfully saying something with a vain effort at smiling—what o’clock was it? when did he think they could reach town?—little ineffectual attempts at the common intercourse, which seemed somehow to deepen the dreadful silence, the shivering cold, the utter desolation of the scene. Such a night!—its minutes were hours as they stole by noiseless in murderous length and tedium—and the climax of its misery was in the little start with which Mrs. Vincent now and then woke up out of her own thoughts to make that pitiful effort to talk to her son.
They were sitting thus, waiting, not even venturing to look at each other, when a sudden sound startled them. Nothing more than a footstep outside approaching softly. A footstep—surely two steps. They could hear them far off in this wonderful stillness, making steady progress near—nearer. Mrs. Vincent rose up, stretching her little figure into a preternatural hysteric semblance of height. Who was it? Two people—surely women—and what women could be abroad at such an hour? One lighter, one heavier, irregular as female steps are, coming this way—this way! Her heart fluttered in the widow’s ears with a sound that all but obliterated those steps which still kept advancing. Hark, sudden silence! a pause—then, oh merciful heaven, could it be true? a tinkle at the bell—a summons at the closed door.
Mrs. Vincent had flown forth with open arms—with eyes blinded. The poor soul thought nothing less than that it was her child returned. They carried her back speechless, in a disappointment too cruel and bitter to have expression. Two women—one sober, sleepy, nervous, and full of trouble, unknown to either mother or son—the other with a certain dreadful inspiration in her dark face, and eyes that gleamed out of it as if they had concentrated into them all the blackness of the night.
“You are going back, and so am I,” Mrs. Hilyard said. “I came to say a word to you before I go away. If I have been anyhow the cause, forgive me. God knows, of all things in the world the last I dreamt of was to injure this good woman or invade her innocent house. Do you know where they have gone?—did she leave any letters?—Tell me. She shall be precious to me as my own, if I find them out.”
Mrs. Vincent freed herself from her son’s arms, and got up with her blanched face. “My daughter—followed me—to Carlingford,” she said, in broken words, with a determination which sat almost awful on her weakness. “We have had the great misfortune—to cross each other—on the way. I am going—after her—directly. I am not afraid—of my Susan. She is all safe in my son’s house.”
The others exchanged alarmed looks, as they might have done had a child suddenly assumed the aspect of a leader. She, who could scarcely steady her trembling limbs to stand upright, faced their looks with a dumb denial of her own anguish. “It is—very unfortunate—but I am not anxious,” she said, slowly, with a ghastly smile. Human nature could do no more. She sank down again on her seat, but still faced them—absolute in her self-restraint, rejecting pity. Not even tears should fall upon Susan’s sweet name—not while her mother lived to defend it in life and death.
The Carlingford needlewoman stood opposite her, gazing with eyes that went beyond that figure, and yet dwelt upon it, at so wonderful a spectacle. Many a terrible secret of life unknown to the minister’s gentle mother throbbed in her heart; but she stood in a pause of wonder before that weaker woman. The sight of her stayed the passionate current for a moment, and brought the desperate woman to a pause. Then she turned to the young man, who stood speechless by his mother’s side—
“You are a priest, and yet you do not curse,” she said. “Is God as careless of a curse as of a blessing? She thinks He will save the Innocents yet. She does not know that He stands by like a man, and sees them murdered, and shines and rains all the same. God! No—He never interferes. Good-bye,” she added, suddenly, holding out to him the thin hand upon which, even in that dreadful moment, his eye still caught the traces of her work, the scars of the needle, and stains of the coarse colour. “If you ever see me again, I shall be a famous woman, Mr. Vincent. You will have a little of the trail of my glory, and be able to furnish details of my latter days. This good Miss Smith here will tell you of the life it was before; but if I should make a distinguished end after all, come to see me then—never mind where. I speak madly, to be sure, but you don’t understand me. There—not a word. You preach very well, but I am beyond preaching now—Good-bye.”
“No,” said Vincent, clutching her hand—“never, if you go with that horrible intention in your eyes; I will say no farewell to such an errand as this.”
The eyes in their blank brightness paused at him for a moment before they passed to the vacant air on which they were always fixed—paused with a certain glance of troubled amusement, the lightning of former days. “You flatter me,” she said, steadily, with the old habitual movement of her mouth. “It is years since anybody has taken the trouble to read any intention in my eyes. But don’t you understand yet that a woman’s intention is the last thing she is likely to perform in this world? We do have meanings now and then, we poor creatures, but they seldom come to much. Good-bye, good-bye!”
“You cannot look at me,” said Vincent, with a conscious incoherence, reason or argument being out of the question. “What is it you see behind there? Where are you looking with those dreadful eyes?”
She brought her eyes back as he spoke, with an evident effort, to fix them upon his face. “I once remarked upon your high-breeding,” said the strange woman. “A prince could not have shown finer manners than you did in Carlingford, Mr. Vincent. Don’t disappoint me now. If I see ghosts behind you, what then? Most people that have lived long enough, come to see ghosts before they die. But this is not exactly the time for conversation, however interesting it may be. If you and I ever see each other again, things will have happened before then; you too, perhaps, may have found the ghosts out. I appoint you to come to see me after you have come to life again, in the next world. Good-night. I don’t forget that you gave me your blessing when we parted last.”
She was turning away when Mrs. Vincent rose, steadying herself by the chair, and put a timid hand upon the stranger’s arm. “I don’t know who you are,” said the widow; “it is all a strange jumble; but I am an older woman than you, and a—a minister’s wife. You have something on your mind. My son is frightened you will do something—I cannot tell what. You are much cleverer than I am; but I am, as I say, an older woman, and a—a minister’s wife. I am not—afraid of anything. Yes! I know God does not always save the Innocents, as you say—but He knows why, though we don’t. Will you go with me? If you have gone astray when you were young,” said the mild woman, raising up her little figure with an ineffable simplicity, “I will never ask any questions, and it will not matter—for everybody I care for knows me. The dreadful things you think of will not happen if we go together. I was a minister’s wife thirty years. I know human nature and God’s goodness. Come with me.”
“Mother, mother! what are you saying?” cried Vincent, who had all the time been making vain attempts to interrupt this extraordinary speech. Mrs. Hilyard put him away with a quick gesture. She took hold of the widow’s hand with that firm, supporting, compelling pressure under which, the day before, Mrs. Vincent had yielded up all her secrets. She turned her eyes out of vacancy to the little pale woman who offered her this protection. A sudden mist surprised those gleaming eyes—a sudden thrill ran through the thin, slight, iron figure, upon which fatigue and excitement seemed to make no impression. The rock was stricken at last.
“No—no,” she sighed, with a voice that trembled. “No—no! the lamb and the lion do not go together yet in this poor world. No—no—no. I wonder what tears have to do in my eyes; ah, God in the skies! if you ever do miracles, do one for this woman, and save her child! Praying and crying are strange fancies for me—I must go away, but first,” she said, still holding Mrs. Vincent fast—“a woman is but a woman after all—if it is more honourable to be a wicked man’s wife than to have gone astray, as you call it, then there is no one in the world who can breathe suspicion upon me. Ask this other good woman here, who knows all about me, but fears me, like you. Fears me! What do you suppose there can be to fear, Mr. Vincent, you who are a scholar, and know better than these soft women,” said Mrs. Hilyard, suddenly dropping the widow’s hand, and turning round upon the young minister, with an instant throwing off of all emotion, which had the strangest horrifying effect upon the little agitated company, “in a woman who was born to the name of Rachel Russell, the model English wife? Will the world ever believe harm, do you imagine, of such a name? I will take refuge in my ancestress. But we go different ways, and have different ends to accomplish,” she continued, with a sudden returning gleam of the subdued horror—“Good-night—good-night!”
“Oh, stop her, Arthur—stop her!—Susan will be at Carlingford when we get there; Susan will go nowhere else but to her mother,” cried Mrs. Vincent, as the door closed on the nocturnal visitors—“I am as sure—as sure——! Oh, my dear, do you think I can have any doubt of my own child? As for Susan going astray—or being carried off—or falling into wickedness—Arthur!” said his mother, putting back her veil from her pale face, “now I have got over this dreadful night, I know better—nobody must breathe such a thing to me. Tell her so, dear—tell her so!—call her back—they will be at Carlingford when we get there!”
Vincent drew his mother’s arm through his own, and led her out into the darkness, which was morning and no longer night. “A few hours longer and we shall see,” he said, with a hard-drawn breath. Into that darkness Mrs. Hilyard and her companion had disappeared. There was another line of railway within a little distance of Lonsdale, but Vincent was at pains not to see his fellow-travellers as he placed his mother once more in a carriage, and once more caught the eye of the man whose curious look had startled him. When the grey morning began to dawn, it revealed two ashen faces, equally speechless and absorbed with thoughts which neither dared communicate to the other. They did not even look at each other, as the merciful noise and motion wrapped them in that little separate sphere of being. One possibility and no more kept a certain coherence in both their thoughts, otherwise lost in wild chaos—horrible suspense—an uncertainty worse than death.