After the remarkable encounter which had thus happened to the young
minister, life went on with him in the dullest routine for some days.
Thursday came, and he had to go to Mrs. Brown's tea-party, where, in the
drawing-room up-stairs, over the Devonshire Dairy, after tea, and music,
and the diversions of the evening, he conducted prayers to the great
secret satisfaction of the hostess, who felt that the superior piety of
her entertainment entirely made up for any little advantage in point of
gentility which Mrs. Tozer, with a grown-up daughter fresh from a
boarding-school, might have over her. On Friday evening there was the
singing-class at the chapel, which Mr. Vincent was expected to look in
upon, and from which he had the privilege of walking home with Miss
Tozer. When he arrived with his blooming charge at the private door, the
existence of which he had not hitherto been aware of, Tozer himself
appeared, to invite the young pastor to enter. This time it was the
butterman's unadorned domestic hearth to which Mr. Vincent was
introduced. This happy privacy was in a little parlour, which, being on
the same floor with the butter-shop, naturally was not without a
reminiscence of the near vicinity of all those hams and cheeses--a room
nearly blocked up by the large family-table, at which, to the disgust
of Phoebe, the apprentices sat at meal-times along with the family.
One little boy, distinguished out of doors by a red worsted comforter,
was, besides Phoebe, the only member of the family itself now at home;
the others being two sons, one in Australia, and the other studying for
a minister, as Mrs. Tozer had already informed her pastor, with motherly
pride. Mrs. Tozer sat in an easy-chair by the fire darning stockings on
this October night; her husband, opposite to her, had been looking over
his greasy books, one of which lay open upon a little writing-desk,
where a bundle of smaller ones in red leather, with "Tozer,
Cheesemonger," stamped on them in gilt letters, lay waiting Phoebe's
arrival to be made up. The Benjamin of the house sat half-way down the
long table with his slate working at his lessons. The margin of space
round this long table scarcely counted in the aspect of the room. There
was space enough for chairs to be set round it, and that was all: the
table with its red-and-blue cover and the faces appearing above it,
constituted the entire scene. Mr. Vincent stood uneasily at a corner
when he was brought into the apartment, and distinctly placed himself at
table, as if at a meal, when he sat down.
"Do you now take off your greatcoat, and make yourself comfortable,"
said Mrs. Tozer; "there's a bit of supper coming presently. This is just
what I like, is this. A party is very well in its way, Mr. Vincent, sir;
but when a gen'leman comes in familiar, and takes us just as we are,
that's what I like. We never can be took wrong of an evening, Tozer and
me; there's always a bit of something comfortable for supper; and after
the shop's shut in them long evenings, time's free. Phoebe, make haste
and take off your things. What a colour you've got, to be sure, with the
night air! I declare, Pa, somebody must have been saying something to
her, or she'd never look so bright."
"I daresay there's more things than music gets talked of at the
singing," said Tozer, thus appealed to. "But she'd do a deal better if
she'd try to improve her mind than take notice what the young fellows
says."
"Oh, Pa, the idea! and before Mr. Vincent too," cried Phoebe--"to think
I should ever dream of listening to anything that _anybody_ might choose
to say!"
Vincent, to whom the eyes of the whole family turned, grinned a feeble
smile, but, groaning in his mind, was totally unequal to the effort of
saying anything. After a moment's pause of half-disappointed
expectation, Phoebe disappeared to take off her bonnet; and Mrs.
Tozer, bestirring herself, cleared away the desk and books, and went
into the kitchen to inquire into the supper. The minister and the deacon
were accordingly left alone.
"Three more pews applied for this week--fifteen sittings in all," said
Mr. Tozer; "that's what I call satisfactory, that is. We mustn't let the
steam go down--not on no account. You keep well at them of Sundays, Mr.
Vincent, and trust to the managers, sir, to keep 'em up to their dooty.
Me and Mr. Tufton was consulting the other day. He says as we oughtn't
to spare you, and you oughtn't to spare yourself. There hasn't been such
a opening not in our connection for fifteen year. We all look to you to
go into it, Mr. Vincent. If all goes as I expect, and you keep up as
you're doing, I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to put another
fifty to the salary next year."
"Oh!" said poor Vincent, with a miserable face. He had been rather
pleased to hear about the "opening," but this matter-of-fact
encouragement and stimulus threw him back into dismay and disgust.
"Yes," said the deacon, "though I wouldn't advise you, as a young man
settin' out in life, to calculate upon it, yet we all think it more than
likely; but if you was to ask my advice, I'd say to give it 'em a little
more plain--meaning the Church folks. It's expected of a new man. I'd
touch 'em up in the State-Church line, Mr. Vincent, if I was you. Give
us a coorse upon the anomalies, and that sort of thing--the bishops in
their palaces, and the fisherman as was the start of it all; there's a
deal to be done in that way. It always tells; and my opinion is as you
might secure the most part of the young men and thinkers, and them as
can see what's what, if you lay it on pretty strong. Not," added the
deacon, remembering in time to add that necessary salve to the
conscience--"not as I would have you neglect what's more important; but,
after all, what is more important, Mr. Vincent, than freedom of opinion
and choosing your own religious teacher? You can't put gospel truth in a
man's mind till you've freed him out of them bonds. It stands to
reason--as long as he believes just what he's told, and has it all made
out for him the very words he's to pray, there may be feelin', sir, but
there can't be no spiritual understandin' in that man."
"Well, one can't deny that there have been enlightened men in the Church
of England," said the young Nonconformist, with lofty candour. "The
inconsistencies of the human mind are wonderful; and it is coming to be
pretty clearly understood in the intellectual world, that a man may show
the most penetrating genius, and even the widest liberality, and yet be
led a willing slave in the bonds of religious rite and ceremony. One
cannot understand it, it is true; but in our clearer atmosphere we are
bound to exercise Christian charity. Great as the advantages are on our
side of the question, I would not willingly hurt the feelings of a
sincere Churchman, who, for anything I know, may be the best of men."
Mr. Tozer paused with a "humph!" of uncertainty; rather dazzled with the
fine language, but doubtful of the sentiment. At length light seemed to
dawn upon the excellent butterman. "Bless my soul! that's a new view,"
said Tozer; "that's taking the superior line over them! My impression is
as that would tell beautiful. Eh! it's famous, that is! I've heard a
many gentlemen attacking the Church, like, from down below, and giving
it her about her money and her greatness, and all that; but our clearer
atmosphere--there's the point! I always knew as you was a clever young
man, Mr. Vincent, and expected a deal from you; but that's a new view,
that is!"
"Oh, Pa, dear! don't be always talking about chapel business," said Miss
Phoebe, coming in. "I am sure Mr. Vincent is sick to death of Salem. I
am sure his heart is in some other place now; and if you bore him always
about the chapel, he'll never, _never_ take to Carlingford. Oh, Mr.
Vincent, I am sure you know it is quite true!"
"Indeed," said the young minister, with a sudden recollection, "I can
vouch for my heart being in Carlingford, and nowhere else;" and as he
spoke his colour rose. Phoebe clapped her hands with a little
semblance of confusion.
"Oh, la!" cried that young lady, "that is _quite_ as good as a
confession that you have lost it, Mr. Vincent. Oh, I _am_ so interested!
I wonder who it can be!"
"Hush, child; I daresay we shall know before long," said Mrs. Tozer, who
had also rejoined the domestic party; "and don't you colour up or look
ashamed, Mr. Vincent. Take my word, it's the very best a young minister
can do. To be sure, where there's a quantity of young ladies in a
congregation, it sometimes makes a little dispeace; but there ain't to
say many to choose from in Salem."
"La, mamma, how _can_ you think it's a lady in Salem?" cried Phoebe,
in a flutter of consciousness.
"Oh, you curious thing!" cried Mrs. Tozer: "she'll never rest, Mr.
Vincent, till she's found it all out. She always was, from a child, a
dreadful one for finding out a secret. But don't you trouble yourself;
it's the very best thing a young minister can do."
Poor Vincent made a hasty effort to exculpate himself from the soft
impeachment, but with no effect. Smiles, innuendoes, a succession of
questions asked by Phoebe, who retired, whenever she had made her
remark, with conscious looks and pink blushes, perpetually renewed this
delightful subject. The unlucky young man retired upon Tozer. In
desperation he laid himself open to the less troublesome infliction of
the butterman's advice. In the mean time the table was spread, and
supper appeared in most substantial and savoury shape; the only drawback
being, that whenever the door was opened, the odours of bacon and cheese
from the shop came in like a musty shadow of the boiled ham and hot
sausages within.
"I am very partial to your style, Mr. Vincent," said the deacon;
"there's just one thing I'd like to observe, sir, if you'll excuse _me_.
I'd give 'em a coorse; there's nothing takes like a coorse in our
connection. Whether it's on a chapter or a book of Scripture, or on a
perticklar doctrine, I'd make a pint of giving 'em a coorse if it was
me. There was Mr. Bailey, of Parson's Green, as was so popular before he
married--he had a historical coorse in the evenings, and a coorse upon
the eighth of Romans in the morning; and it was astonishing to see how
they took. I walked over many and many's the summer evening myself, he
kep' up the interest so. There ain't a cleverer man in our body, nor
wasn't a better liked as he was then."
"And now I understand he's gone away--what was the reason?" asked Mr.
Vincent.
Tozer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "All along of the
women: they didn't like his wife; and my own opinion is, he fell off
dreadful. Last time I heard him, I made up my mind I'd never go back
again--me that was such an admirer of his; and the managers found the
chapel was falling off, and a deputation waited on him; and, to be sure,
he saw it his duty to go."
"And, oh, she was so sweetly pretty!" cried Miss Phoebe: "but pray,
pray, Mr. Vincent, don't look so pale. If you marry a pretty lady, we'll
all be so kind to her! We shan't grudge her our minister; we shall----"
Here Miss Phoebe paused, overcome by her emotions.
"I do declare there never was such a child," said Mrs. Tozer: "it's none
of your business, Phoebe. She's a great deal too feelin', Mr. Vincent.
But I don't approve, for my part, of a minister marrying a lady as is
too grand for her place, whatever Phoebe may say. It's her that should
teach suchlike as us humility and simple ways; and a fine lady isn't no
way suitable. Not to discourage you, Mr. Vincent, I haven't a doubt, for
my part, that you'll make a nice choice."
"I have not the least intention of trying the experiment," said poor
Vincent, with a faint smile; then, turning to his deacon, he plunged
into the first subject that occurred to him. "Do you know a Mrs. Hilyard
in Back Grove Street?" asked the young minister. "I went to see her the
other day. Who is she, or where does she belong to, can you tell
me?--and which of your great ladies in Carlingford is it," he added,
with a little catching of his breath after a momentary pause, "who
visits that poor lady? I saw a carriage at her door."
"Meaning the poor woman at the back of the chapel?" said Tozer--"I don't
know nothing of her, except that I visited there, sir, as you might do,
in the way of dooty. Ah! I fear she's in the gall of bitterness, Mr.
Vincent; she didn't take my 'umble advice, sir, not as a Christian
ought. But she comes to the chapel regular enough; and you may be the
means of putting better thoughts into her mind; and as for our great
ladies in Carlingford," continued Mr. Tozer, with the air of an
authority, "never a one of them, I give you my word, would go out of her
way a-visiting to one of the chapel folks. They're a deal too bigoted
for that, especially them at St. Roque's."
"Oh, Pa, how can you say so," cried Phoebe, "when it's very well known
the ladies go everywhere, where the people are very, very poor? but then
Mr. Vincent said a poor _lady_. Was it a nice carriage? The Miss
Wodehouses always walk, and so does Mrs. Glen, and all the Strangeways.
Oh, I know, it was the young Dowager--that pretty, pretty lady, you
know, mamma, that gives the grand parties, and lives in Grange Lane. I
saw her carriage going up the lane by the chapel once. Oh, Mr. Vincent,
wasn't she very, _very_ pretty, with blue eyes and brown hair?"
"I could not tell you what kind of eyes and hair they were," said Mr.
Vincent, trying hard to speak indifferently, and quite succeeding so far
as Phoebe Tozer was concerned; for who could venture to associate the
minister of Salem, even as a victim, with the bright eyes of Lady
Western? "I thought it strange to see her there, whoever she was."
"Oh, how insensible you are!" murmured Phoebe, across the table.
Perhaps, considering all things, it was not strange that Phoebe should
imagine her own pink bloom to have dimmed the young pastor's
appreciation of other beauty.
"But it was Mrs. Hilyard I inquired about, and not this Lady--Lady what,
Miss Phoebe?" asked the reverend hypocrite; "I don't profess to be
learned in titles, but hers is surely a strange one. I thought dowager
was another word for an old woman."
"She's a beautiful young creature," broke in the butterman. "I mayn't
approve of such goings-on, but I can't shut my eyes. She deals with me
regular, and I can tell you the shop looks like a different place when
them eyes of hers are in it. She's out of our line, and she's out of
your line, Mr. Vincent," added Tozer, apologetically, coming down from
his sudden enthusiasm, "or I mightn't say as much as I do say, for she's
gay, and always a-giving parties, and spending her life in company, as I
don't approve of; but to look in her face, you couldn't say a word
against her--nor I couldn't. She might lead a man out of his wits, and I
wouldn't not to say blame him. If the angels are nicer to look at, it's
a wonder to me!" Having reached to this pitch of admiration, the
alarmed butterman came to a sudden pause, looked round him somewhat
dismayed, wiped his forehead, rubbed his hands, and evidently felt that
he had committed himself, and was at the mercy of his audience. Little
did the guilty Tozer imagine that never before--not when giving counsel
upon chapel business in the height of wisdom, or complimenting the
sermon as only a chapel-manager, feeling in his heart that the seats
were letting, could--had he spoken so much to the purpose in young
Vincent's hearing, or won so much sympathy from the minister. As for the
female part of the company, they were at first too much amazed for
speech. "Upon my word, Papa!" burst from the lips of the half-laughing,
half-angry Phoebe. Mrs. Tozer, who had been cutting bread with a large
knife, hewed at her great loaf in silence, and not till that occupation
was over divulged her sentiments.
"Some bread, Mr. Vincent?" said at last that injured woman: "that's how
it is with all you men. Niver a one, however you may have been brought
up, nor whatever pious ways you may have been used to, can stand out
against a pretty face. Thank goodness, _we_ know better. Beauty's but
skin-deep, Mr. Vincent; and, for my part, I can't see the difference
between one pair o' eyes and another. I daresay I see as well out of
mine as Lady Western does out o' hers, though Tozer goes on about 'em.
It's a mercy for the world, women ain't carried away so; and to hear a
man as is the father of a family, and ought to set an example, a-talking
like this in his own house! What is the minister to think, Tozer? and
Phoebe, a girl as is as likely to take up notions about her looks as
most? It's what I didn't expect from you."
"La, mamma! as if there was any likeness between Lady Western and me!"
cried Phoebe, lifting a not-unexpectant face across the table. But Mr.
Vincent was not equal to the occasion. In that _locale_, and under these
circumstances, a tolerable breadth of compliment would not have shocked
anybody's feelings; but the pastor neglected his opportunities. He sat
silent, and made no reply to Phoebe's look. He even at this moment, if
truth must be told, devoted himself to the well-filled plate which Mrs.
Tozer's hospitality had set before him. He would fain have made a
diversion in poor Tozer's favour had anything occurred to him in the
thrill of sudden excitement which Tozer's declaration had surprised him
into. As it was, tingling with anxiety to hear more of that unknown
enchantress, whose presence made sunshine even in the butterman's shop,
no indifferent words would find their way to Vincent's lips. So he
bestowed his attentions instead upon the comfortable supper to which
everybody around him, quite unexcited by this little interlude, was
doing full justice, and, not venturing to ask, listened with a
palpitating heart.
"You see, Mr. Vincent," resumed Mrs. Tozer, "that title of 'the young
Dowager' has been given to Lady Western by them as is her chief friends
in Carlingford. Such little things comes to our knowledge as they
mightn't come to other folks in our situation, by us serving the best
families. There's but two families in Grange Lane as don't deal with
Tozer, and one of them's a new-comer as knows no better, and the other a
stingy old bachelor, as we wouldn't go across the road to get his
custom. A well-kept house must have its butter, and its cheese, and its
ham regular; but when there's but a man and a maid, and them nigh as
bilious as the master, and picking bits of cheese as one never heard the
name of, and as has to be sent to town for, or to the Italian shop, it
stands to reason neither me nor Tozer cares for a customer like that."
"Oh, Ma, what _does_ Mr. Vincent care about the customers?" cried
Phoebe, in despair.
"He might, then, before all's done," said the deaconess. "We couldn't be
as good friends to the chapel, nor as serviceable, nor as well thought
on in our connection, if it wasn't for the customers. So you see, sir,
Lady Western, she's a young lady not a deal older than my Phoebe, but
by reason of having married an old man, she has a step-son twice as old
as herself, and he's married; and so this gay pretty creature here,
she's the Dowager Lady Western. I've seen her with _young_ Lady Western,
her step-daughter-in-law, and young Lady Western was a deal older, and
more serious-looking, and knew twenty times more of life than the
Dowager--and you may be sure she don't lose the opportunity to laugh at
it neither--and so that's how the name arose."
"Thank you for the explanation; and I suppose, of course, she lives in
Grange Lane," said the pastor, still bending with devotion over his
plate.
"Dear, dear, you don't eat nothink, Mr. Vincent," cried his benevolent
hostess; "that comes of study, as I'm always a-telling Tozer. A deal
better, says I, to root the minister out, and get him to move about for
the good of his health, than to put him up to sermons and coorses, when
we're all as pleased as Punch to start with. She lives in Grange Lane,
to be sure, as they most all do as is anything in Carlingford. Fashion's
all--but I like a bit of stir and life myself, and couldn't a-bear them
close walls. But it would be news in Salem that we was spending our
precious time a-talking over a lady like Lady Western; and as for the
woman at the back of the chapel, don't you be led away to go to
everybody as Mrs. Brown sends you to, Mr. Vincent. She's a good soul,
but she's always a-picking up somebody. Tozer's been called up at twelve
o'clock, when we were all a-bed, to see somebody as was dying; and there
was no dying about it, but only Mrs. Brown's way. My son, being at his
eddication for a minister, makes me feel mother-like to a young pastor,
Mr. Vincent. I'd be grateful to anybody as would give my boy warning
when it comes to be his time."
"I almost wonder," said Vincent, with a little natural impatience, "that
you did not struggle on with Mr. Tufton for a little longer, till your
son's education was finished."
Mrs. Tozer held up her head with gratified pride. "He'll be two years
before he's ready, and there's never no telling what may happen in that
time," said the pleased mother, forgetting how little favourable to her
guest was any anticipated contingency. The words were very innocently
spoken, but they had their effect upon Vincent. He made haste to
extricate himself from the urgent hospitality which surrounded him. He
was deafer than ever to Miss Phoebe's remarks, and listened with a
little impatience to Tozer's wisdom. As soon as he could manage it, he
left them, with abundant material for his thoughts. "There's never no
telling what may happen in that time," rang in his ears as he crossed
George Street to his lodging, and the young minister could scarcely
check the disgust and impatience which were rising in his mind. In all
the pride of his young intellect, to be advised by Tozer--to have
warning stories told him of that unfortunate brother in Parson's Green,
whose pretty wife made herself obnoxious to the deacons' wives--to have
the support afforded by the butterman to the chapel thrown in his face
with such an undisguised claim upon his gratitude--oh heaven, was this
what Homerton was to come to? Perhaps he had been brought here, in all
the young flush of his hopes, only to have the life crushed out of him
by those remorseless chapel-managers, and room made over his tarnished
fame and mortified expectations--over his body, as the young man said to
himself in unconscious heroics--for young Tozer's triumphant entrance.
On the whole, it was not to be supposed that to see himself at the mercy
of such a limited and jealous coterie--people proud of their liberality
to the chapel, and altogether unable to comprehend the feelings of a
sensitive and cultivated mind--could be an agreeable prospect to the
young man. Their very approbation chafed him; and if he went beyond
their level, or exceeded their narrow limit, what mercy was he to
expect, what justice, what measure of comprehension? He went home with a
bitterness of disgust in his mind far more intense and tragical than
appeared to be at all necessary in the circumstances, and which only the
fact that this was his first beginning in real life, and that his
imagination had never contemplated the prominent position of the
butter-shop and the Devonshire Dairy, in what he fondly called his new
sphere, could have justified. Perhaps no new sphere ever came up to the
expectations of the neophyte; but to come, if not with too much gospel,
yet with an intellectual Christian mission, an evangelist of refined
nonconformity, an apostle of thought and religious opinion, and to sink
suddenly into "coorses" of sermons and statistics of seat-letting in
Salem--into tea-parties of deacons' wives, and singing-classes--into the
complacent society of those good people who were conscious of doing so
much for the chapel and supporting the minister--that was a downfall not
to be lightly thought of. Salem itself, and the new pulpit, which had a
short time ago represented to poor Vincent that tribune from which he
was to influence the world, that point of vantage which was all a true
man needed for the making of his career, dwindled into a miserable scene
of trade before his disenchanted eyes--a preaching shop, where his
success was to be measured by the seat-letting, and his soul decanted
out into periodical issue under the seal of Tozer & Co. Such, alas! were
the indignant thoughts with which, the old Adam rising bitter and
strong within him, the young Nonconformist hastened home.
And She was Lady Western--the gayest and brightest and highest luminary
in all the society of Carlingford. As well love the moon, who no longer
descends to Endymion, as lift presumptuous eyes to that sweeter planet
which was as much out of reach of the Dissenting minister. Poor fellow!
his room did not receive a very cheerful inmate when he shut the door
upon the world and sat down with his thoughts.