It was with a somewhat clouded aspect that the young pastor rose from
his solitary breakfast-table next morning to devote himself to the
needful work of visiting his flock. The minister's breakfast, though
lonely, had not been without alleviations. He had the "Carlingford
Gazette" at his elbow, if that was any comfort, and he had two letters
which were more interesting; one was from his mother, a minister's
widow, humbly enough off, but who had brought up her son in painful
gentility, and had done much to give him that taste for good society
which was to come to so little fruition in Carlingford. Mr. Vincent
smiled sardonically as he read his good mother's questions about his
"dear people," and her anxious inquiry whether he had found a "pleasant
circle" in Salem. Remembering the dainty little household which it took
her so much pains and pinching to maintain, the contrast made present
affairs still more and more distasteful to her son. He could fancy her
trim little figure in that traditionary black silk gown which never wore
out, and the whitest of caps, gazing aghast at Mrs. Brown and Mrs.
Tozer. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Vincent understood all about Mrs. Brown
and Mrs. Tozer, and had been very civil to such, and found them very
serviceable in her day, though her son, who knew her only in that
widowed cottage where she had her own way, could not have realised it.
The other letter was from a Homerton chum, a young intellectual and
ambitious Nonconformist like himself, whose epistle was full of
confidence and hope, triumph in the cause, and its perpetual advance.
"We are the priests of the poor," said the Homerton enthusiast,
encouraging his friend to the sacrifices and struggles which he presumed
to be already surrounding him. Mr. Vincent bundled up this letter with a
sigh. Alas! there were no grand struggles or sacrifices in Carlingford.
"The poor" were mostly church-goers, as he had already discovered. It
was a tolerably comfortable class of the community, that dreadful
"connection" of Browns, Pigeons, and Tozers. Amid their rude luxuries
and commonplace plenty, life could have no heroic circumstances. The
young man sighed, and did not feel so sure as he once did of the grand
generalities in which his friend was still confident. If Dissenters led
the van of progress generally, there was certainly an exception to be
made in respect to Carlingford. And the previous evening's entertainment
had depressed the young minister's expectations even of what he himself
could do--a sad blow to a young man. He was less convinced that
opportunity of utterance was all that was necessary to give him
influence in the general community. He was not half so sure of success
in opening the closed doors and sealed hearts of Grange Lane. On the
whole, matters looked somewhat discouraging that particular morning,
which was a morning in October, not otherwise depressing or
disagreeable. He took his hat and went down-stairs with a kind of
despairing determination to do his duty. There an encounter occurred
which did not raise his spirits. The door was open, and his landlady,
who was a member of Salem Chapel, stood there in full relief against the
daylight outside, taking from the hands of Miss Phoebe Tozer a little
basket, the destination of which she was volubly indicating. Mr. Vincent
appearing before Phoebe had half concluded her speech, that young lady
grew blushingly embarrassed, and made haste to relinquish her hold of
the basket. Her conscious looks filled the unwitting minister with
ignorant amaze.
"Oh, to think Mr. Vincent should catch me here! What ever will he think?
and what ever will Ma say?" cried Miss Phoebe. "Oh, Mr. Vincent, Ma
thought, please, you might perhaps like some jelly, and I said I would
run over with it myself, as it's so near, and the servant might have
made a mistake, and Ma hopes you'll enjoy it, and that you liked the
party last night!"
"Mrs. Tozer is very kind," said the minister, with cloudy looks. "Some
what, did you say, Miss Phoebe?"
"La! only some jelly--nothing worth mentioning--only a shape that was
over supper last night, and Ma thought you wouldn't mind," cried the
messenger, half alarmed by the unusual reception of her offering. Mr.
Vincent turned very red, and looked at the basket as if he would like
nothing better than to pitch it into the street; but prudence for once
restrained the young man. He bit his lips, and bowed, and went upon his
way, without waiting, as she intended he should, to escort Miss Phoebe
back again to her paternal shop. Carrying his head higher than usual,
and thrilling with offence and indignation, the young pastor made his
way along George Street. It was a very trifling circumstance, certainly;
but just when an enthusiastic companion writes to you about the advance
of the glorious cause, and your own high vocation as a soldier of the
Cross, and the undoubted fact that the hope of England is in you, to
have a shape of jelly, left over from last night's tea-party, sent
across the street with complacent kindness, for your refreshment----! It
_was_ trying. To old Mrs. Tufton, indeed, who had an invalid daughter,
it might have seemed a Christian bounty; but to Arthur Vincent,
five-and-twenty, a scholar and a gentleman--ah me! If he had been a
Christchurch man, or even a Fellow of Trinity, the chances are he would
have taken it much more graciously; for then he would have had the
internal consciousness of his own dignity to support him; whereas the
sting of it all was, that poor young Vincent had no special right to his
own pretensions, but had come to them he could not tell how; and, in
reality, had his mind been on a level with his fortunes, ought to have
found the Tozers and Pigeons sufficiently congenial company. He went
along George Street with troubled haste, pondering his sorrows--those
sorrows which he could confide to nobody. Was he actually to live among
these people for years--to have no other society--to circulate among
their tea-parties, and grow accustomed to their finery, and perhaps "pay
attention" to Phoebe Tozer; or, at least, suffer that young lady's
attentions to him? And what would become of him at the end? To drop into
a shuffling old gossip, like good old Mr. Tufton, seemed the best thing
he could hope for; and who could wonder at the mild stupor of
paralysis--disease not tragical, only drivelling--which was the last
chapter of all?
The poor young man accordingly marched along George Street deeply
disconsolate. When he met the perpetual curate of St. Roque's at the
door of Masters's bookshop--where, to be sure, at that hour in the
morning, it was natural to encounter Mr. Wentworth--the young
Nonconformist gazed at him with a certain wistfulness. They looked at
each other, in fact, being much of an age, and not unsimilar in worldly
means just at the present moment. There were various points of
resemblance between them. Mr. Vincent, too, wore an Anglican coat, and
assumed a high clerical aspect--sumptuary laws forbidding such
presumption being clearly impracticable in England; and the Dissenter
was as fully endowed with natural good looks as the young priest. How
was it, then, that so vast a world of difference and separation lay
between them? For one compensating moment Mr. Vincent decided that it
was because of his more enlightened faith, and felt himself persecuted.
But even that pretence did not serve the purpose. He began to divine
faintly, and with a certain soreness, that external circumstances do
stand for something, if not in the great realities of a man's career, at
least in the comforts of his life. A poor widow's son, educated at
Homerton, and an English squire's son, public school and university
bred, cannot begin on the same level. To compensate that disadvantage
requires something more than a talent for preaching. Perhaps genius
would scarcely do it without the aid of time and labour. The conviction
fell sadly upon poor Arthur Vincent as he went down the principal street
of Carlingford in the October sunshine. He was rapidly becoming
disenchanted, and neither the 'Nonconformist' nor the 'Patriot,' nor
Exeter Hall itself, could set him up again.
With these feelings the young pastor pursued his way to see the poor
woman who, according to Mrs. Brown's account, was so anxious to see the
minister. He found this person, whose desire was at present shared by
most of the female members of Salem without the intervention of the
Devonshire Dairy, in a mean little house in the close lane dignified by
the name of Back Grove Street. She was a thin, dark, vivacious-looking
woman, with a face from which some forty years of energetic living had
withdrawn all the colour and fulness which might once have rendered it
agreeable, but which was, nevertheless, a remarkable face, not to be
lightly passed over. Extreme thinness of outline and sharpness of line
made the contrast between this educated countenance and the faces which
had lately surrounded the young minister still more remarkable. It was
not a profound or elevated kind of education, perhaps, but it was very
different from the thin superficial lacker with which Miss Phoebe was
coated. Eager dark eyes, with dark lines under them--thin eloquent
lips, the upper jaw projecting slightly, the mouth closing fast and
firm--a well-shaped small head, with a light black lace handkerchief
fastened under the chin--no complexion or softening of tint--a dark,
sallow, colourless face, thrilling with expression, energy, and thought,
was that on which the young man suddenly lighted as he went in, somewhat
indifferent, it must be confessed, and expecting to find nothing that
could interest him. She was seated in a shabby room, only half-carpeted,
up two pair of stairs, which looked out upon no more lively view than
the back of Salem Chapel itself, with its few dismal scattered
graves--and was working busily at men's clothing of the coarsest kind,
blue stuff which had transferred its colour to her thin fingers. Meagre
as were her surroundings, however, Mr. Vincent, stumbling listlessly up
the narrow bare stair of the poor lodging-house, suddenly came to
himself as he stood within this humble apartment. If this was to be his
penitent, the story she had to tell might be not unworthy of serious
listening. He stammered forth a half apology and explanation of his
errand, as he gazed surprised at so unexpected a figure, wondering
within himself what intense strain and wear of life could have worn to
so thin a tissue the outer garment of this keen and sharp-edged soul.
"Come in," said the stranger, "I am glad to see you. I know you, Mr.
Vincent, though I can't suppose you've observed me. Take a seat. I have
heard you preach ever since you came--so, knowing in a manner how your
thoughts run, I've a kind of acquaintance with you: which, to be sure,
isn't the same on your side. I daresay the woman at the Dairy sent you
to me?"
"I understood--from Mrs. Brown certainly--that you wanted to see me,"
said the puzzled pastor.
"Yes, it was quite true. I have resources in myself, to be sure, as much
as most people," said his new acquaintance, whom he had been directed to
ask for as Mrs. Hilyard, "but still human relations are necessary; and
as I don't know anybody here, I thought I'd join the Chapel. Queer set
of people, rather, don't you think?" she continued, glancing up from her
rapid stitching to catch Vincent's conscious eye; "they thought I was in
spiritual distress, I suppose, and sent me the butterman. Lord bless us!
if I had been, what could he have done for me, does anybody imagine? and
when he didn't succeed, there came the Dairy person, who, I daresay,
would have understood what I wanted had I been a cow. Now I can make out
what I'm doing when I have you, Mr. Vincent. I know your line a little
from your sermons. That was wonderfully clever on Sunday morning about
confirmation. I belong to the Church myself by rights, and was
confirmed, of course, at the proper time, like other people, but I am a
person of impartial mind. That was a famous downright blow. I liked you
there."
"I am glad to have your approbation," said the young minister, rather
stiffly; "but excuse me--I was quite in earnest in my argument."
"Yes, yes; that was the beauty of it," said his eager interlocutor, who
went on without ever raising her eyes, intent upon the rough work which
he could not help observing sometimes made her scarred fingers bleed as
it passed rapidly through them. "No argument is ever worth listening to
if it isn't used in earnest. I've led a wandering life, and heard an
infinity of sermons of late years. When there are any brains in them at
all, you know, they are about the only kind of mental stimulant a poor
woman in my position can come by, for I've no time for reading lately.
Down here, in these regions, where the butterman comes to inquire after
your spiritual interests, and is a superior being," added this singular
new adherent of Salem, looking full for a single moment in her visitor's
eyes, with a slight movement of the muscles of her thin face, and making
a significant pause, "the air's a trifle heavy. It isn't pure oxygen we
breathe in Back Grove Street, by any means."
"I assure you it surprises me more than I can explain, to find," said
Vincent, hesitating for a proper expression, "to find----"
"Such a person as I am in Back Grove Street," interrupted his companion,
quickly; "yes--and thereby hangs a tale. But I did not send for you to
tell it. I sent for you for no particular reason, but a kind of yearning
to talk to somebody. I beg your pardon sincerely--but you know," she
said, once more with a direct sudden glance and that half-visible
movement in her face which meant mischief, "you are a minister, and are
bound to have no inclinations of your own, but to give yourself up to
the comfort of the poor."
"Without any irony, that is the aim I propose to myself," said Vincent;
"but I fear you are disposed to take rather a satirical view of such
matters. It is fashionable to talk lightly on those subjects; but I find
life and its affairs sufficiently serious, I assure you----"
Here she stopped her work suddenly, and looked up at him, her dark sharp
eyes lighting up her thin sallow face with an expression which it was
beyond his power to fathom. The black eyelashes widened, the dark
eyebrows rose, with a full gaze of the profoundest tragic sadness, on
the surface of which a certain gleam of amusement seemed to hover. The
worn woman looked over the dark world of her own experience, of which
she was conscious in every nerve, but of which he knew nothing, and
smiled at his youth out of the abysses of her own life, where volcanoes
had been, and earthquakes. He perceived it dimly, without understanding
how, and faltered and blushed, yet grew angry with all the
self-assertion of youth.
"I don't doubt you know that as well as I do--perhaps better; but
notwithstanding, I find my life leaves little room for laughter," said
the young pastor, not without a slight touch of heroics.
"Mr. Vincent," said Mrs. Hilyard, with a gleam of mirth in her eye, "in
inferring that I perhaps know better, you infer also that I am older
than you, which is uncivil to a lady. But for my part, I don't object to
laughter. Generally it's better than crying, which in a great many cases
I find the only alternative. I doubt, however, much whether life, from
the butterman's point of view, wears the same aspect. I should be
inclined to say not; and I daresay your views will brighten with your
company," added the aggravating woman, again resuming, with eyes fixed
upon it, her laborious work.
"I perceive you see already what is likely to be my great trial in
Carlingford," said young Vincent. "I confess that the society of my
office-bearers, which I suppose I must always consider myself bound
to----"
"That was a very sad sigh," said the rapid observer beside him; "but
don't confide in me, lest I should be tempted to tell somebody. I can
speak my mind without prejudice to anybody; and if you agree with me, it
may be a partial relief to your feelings. I shall be glad to see you
when you can spare me half an hour. I can't look at you while I talk,
for that would lose me so much time, but at my age it doesn't matter.
Come and see me. It's your business to do me good--and it's possible I
might even do some good to you."
"Thank you. I shall certainly come," said the minister, rising with the
feeling that he had received his dismissal for to-day. She rose, too,
quickly, and but for a moment, and held out her hand to him.
"Be sure you don't betray to the dairywoman what I had on my mind, and
wanted to tell you, though she is dying to know," said his singular new
acquaintance, without a smile, but with again a momentary movement in
her thin cheeks. When she had shaken hands with him, she seated herself
again immediately, and without a moment's pause proceeded with her work,
apparently concentrating all her faculties upon it, and neither hearing
nor seeing more of her visitor, though he still stood within two steps
of her, overshadowing the table. The young man turned and left the room
with involuntary quietness, as if he had been dismissed from the
presence of a princess. He went straight down-stairs without ever
pausing, and hastened through the narrow back-street with still the
impulse communicated by that dismissal upon him. When he drew breath, it
was with a curious mixture of feelings. Who she was or what she was--how
she came there, working at those "slops" till the colour came off upon
her hands, and her poor thin fingers bled--she so strangely superior to
her surroundings, yet not despising or quarrelling with them, or even
complaining of them, so far as he could make out--infinitely perplexed
the inexperienced minister. He came away excited and bewildered from the
interview, which had turned out so different from his expectations.
Whether she had done him good, was extremely doubtful; but she had
changed the current of his thoughts, which was in its way an immediate
benefit. Marvelling over such a mysterious apparition, and not so sure
as in the morning that nothing out of the most vulgar routine ever could
occur in Carlingford, Mr. Vincent turned with meditative steps towards
the little house at the extreme end of Grove Street, where his
predecessor still lingered. A visit to old Mr. Tufton was a periodical
once a-week duty, to be performed with the utmost regularity. Tozer and
Pigeon had agreed that it would be the making of the young minister to
draw thus from the experience of the old one. Whether Mr. Vincent agreed
with them, may be apprehended from the scene which follows.