THAT week passed on without much incident. To Vincent and his mother, in whose history days had, for some time past, been counting like years, it might have seemed a very grateful pause, but for the thunderous atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty which clouded over them on every side. Susan’s recovery did not progress; and Dr. Rider began to look as serious over her utter languor and apathy, which nothing seemed able to disturb, as he had done at her delirium. The Salem people stood aloof, as Mrs. Vincent perceived, with keen feminine observation. She could not persuade herself, as she had tried to persuade Mrs. Tozer, that the landlady answered inquiries at the door by way of leaving the sick-room quiet. The fact was, that except Lady Western’s fine footman, the sight of whom at the minister’s door was far from desirable, nobody came to make inquiries except Mrs. Tufton and Phœbe Tozer, the latter of whom found no encouragement in her visits. Politic on all other points, the widow could not deny herself, when circumstances put it in her power to extinguish Phœbe. Mrs. Vincent would not have harmed a fly, but it gave her a certain pleasure to wound the rash female bosom which had, as she supposed, formed plans of securing her son. As for Tozer himself, his visits had almost ceased. He was scarcely to be seen even in the shop, into which sometimes the minister himself gazed disconsolately when he strayed out in the twilight to walk his cares away. The good butterman was otherwise employed. He was wrestling with Pigeon in many a close encounter, holding little committees in the back parlour. On his single arm and strength he felt it now to depend whether or not the pastor could tide it over, and be pulled through.
As for Vincent himself, he had retired from the conflict. He paid no visits; with a certain half-conscious falling back upon the one thing he could do best, he devoted himself to his sermons. At least he shut himself up to write morning after morning, and remained all day dull and undisturbed, brooding over his work. The congregation somehow got to hear of his abstraction. And to the offended mind of Salem there was something imposing in the idea of the minister, misunderstood and unappreciated, thus retiring from the field, and devoting himself to “study.” Even Mrs. Pigeon owned to herself a certain respect for the foe who did not humble himself, but withdrew with dignity into the intrenchments of his own position. It was fine; but it was not the thing for Salem. Mrs. Brown had a tea-party on the Thursday, to which the pastor was not even invited, but where there were great and manifold discussions about him, and where the Tozers found themselves an angry minority, suspected on all sides. “A pastor as makes himself agreeable here and there, but don’t take no thought for the good of the flock in general, ain’t a man to get on in our connection,” said Mrs. Pigeon, with a toss of her head at Phœbe, who blushed over all her pink arms and shoulders with mingled gratification and discomposure. Mrs. Tozer herself received this insinuation without any violent disclaimer. “For my part, I can’t say as the minister hasn’t made himself very agreeable as far as we are concerned,” said that judicious woman. “It’s well known as friends can’t come amiss to Tozer and me. Dinner or supper, we never can be took wrong, not being fine folks but comfortable,” said the butterman’s wife, directing her eyes visibly to Mrs. Pigeon, who was not understood to be liberal in her house-keeping. Poor Phœbe was not so discriminating. When she retired into a corner with her companions, Phœbe’s injured feelings disclosed themselves. “I am sure he never said anything to me that he might not have said to any one,” she confessed to Maria Pigeon; “it is very hard to have people look so at me when perhaps he means nothing at all,” said Phœbe, half dejected, half important. Mrs. Pigeon heard the unguarded confession, and made use of it promptly, not careful for her consistency.
“I said when you had all set your hearts on a young man, that it was a foolish thing to do,” said poor Vincent’s skilful opponent; “I said he’d be sure to come a-dangling about our houses, and a-trifling with the affections of our girls. It’ll be well if it doesn’t come too true; not as I want to pretend to be wiser nor other folks—but I said so, as you’ll remember, Mrs. Brown, the very first day Mr. Vincent preached in Salem. I said, ‘He’s not bad-looking, and he’s young and has genteel ways, and the girls don’t know no better. You mark my words, if he don’t make some mischief in Carlingford afore all’s done,’—and I only hope as it won’t come too true.”
“Them as is used to giddy girls gets timid, as is natural,” said Mrs. Tozer; “it’s different where there is only one, and she a quiet one. I can’t say as I ever thought a young man was more taking for being a minister; but there can’t be no doubt as it must be harder upon you, ma’am, as has four daughters, than me as has only one—and she a quiet one,” added the deacon’s wife, with a glance of maternal pride at Phœbe, who was just then enfolding the spare form of Maria Pigeon in an artless embrace, and who looked in her pink wreath and white muslin dress, “quite the lady,” at least in her mother’s eyes.
“The quiet ones is the deep ones,” said Tozer, interfering, as a wise man ought, in the female duel, as it began to get intense. “Phœbe’s my girl, and I don’t deny being fond of her, as is natural; but she ain’t so innocent as not to know how things is working, and what meaning is in some folks’ minds. But that’s neither here nor there, and it’s time as we was going away.”
“Not before we’ve had prayers,” said Mrs. Brown. “I was surprised the first time I see Mr. Vincent in your house, Mr. Tozer, as we all parted like heathens without a blessing, specially being all chapel folks, and of one way of thinking. Our ways is different in this house; and though we’re in a comfortless kind of condition, and no better than if we hadn’t no minister, still as there’s you and Mr. Pigeon here——”
The tea-party thus concluded with a still more distinct sense of the pastor’s shortcomings. There was nobody to “give prayers” but Pigeon and Tozer. For all social purposes, the flock in Salem might as well have had no minister. The next little committee held in the back parlour at the butter-shop was still more unsatisfactory. While it was in progress, Mr. Vincent himself appeared, and had to be taken solemnly up-stairs to the drawing-room, where there was no fire, and where the hum of the voices below was very audible, as Mrs. Tozer and Phœbe, getting blue with cold, sat vainly trying to occupy the attention of the pastor.
“Pa has some business people with him in the parlour,” explained Phœbe, who was very tender and sympathetic, as might be expected; but it did not require a very brilliant intelligence to divine that the business under discussion was the minister, even if Mrs. Tozer’s solemnity, and the anxious care with which he was conveyed past the closed door of the parlour, had not already filled the mind of the pastor with suspicion.
“Go down and let your pa know as Mr. Vincent’s here,” said Mrs. Tozer, after this uncomfortable séance had lasted half an hour; “and he’s not to keep them men no longer than he can help; and presently we’ll have a bit of supper—that’s what I enjoy, that is, Mr. Vincent; no ceremony like there must be at a party, but just to take us as we are; and we can’t be took amiss, Tozer and me. There’s always a bit of something comfortable for supper; and no friend as could be made so welcome as the minister,” added the good woman, growing more and more civil as she came to her wits’ end; for had not Pigeon and Brown been asked to share that something comfortable? For the first time it was a relief to the butterman’s household when the pastor declined the impromptu invitation, and went resolutely away. His ears, sharpened by suspicion, recognised the familiar voices in the parlour, where the door was ajar when he went out again. Vincent could not have imagined that to feel himself unwelcome at Tozer’s would have had any effect whatever upon his preoccupied mind, or that to pass almost within hearing of one of the discussions which must inevitably be going on about him among the managers of Salem, could quicken his pulse or disturb his composure. But it was so notwithstanding. He had come out at the entreaty of his mother, half unwillingly, anticipating, with the liveliest realisation of all its attendant circumstances, an evening spent at that big table in the back parlour, and something comfortable to supper. He came back again tingling with curiosity, indignation, and suppressed defiance. The something comfortable had not this time been prepared for him. He was being discussed, not entertained, in the parlour; and Mrs. Tozer and Phœbe, in the chill fine drawing-room up-stairs, where the gas was blazing in a vain attempt to make up for the want of the fire—shivering with cold and civility—had been as much disconcerted by his appearance as if they too were plotting against him. Mr. Vincent returned to his sermon not without some additional fire. He had spent a great deal of time over his sermon that week; it was rather learned and very elaborate, and a little—dull. The poor minister felt very conscious of the fact, but could not help it. He was tempted to put it in the fire, and begin again, when he returned that Friday evening, smarting with those little stinging arrows of slight and injury; but it was too late: and this was the beginning of the “coorse” which Tozer had laid so much store by. Vincent concluded the elaborate production by a few sharp sentences, which he was perfectly well aware did not redeem it, and explained to his mother, with a little ill-temper, as she thought, that he had changed his mind about visiting the Tozers that night. Mrs. Vincent did Arthur injustice as she returned to Susan’s room, where again matters looked very sadly; and so the troubled week came to a close.