The journey was troublesome and tedious, involving a change from one
railway to another, and a troubled glimpse into the most noisy streets
of London by the way. Vincent had left his mother, as he thought, safe
in the cab which carried them to the second railway station, and was
disposing of the little luggage they had with them, that he might not
require to leave her again, when he heard an anxious voice calling him,
and found her close behind him, afloat in the bustle and confusion of
the crowd, dreadfully agitated and helpless, calling upon her Arthur
with impatient accents of distress. His annoyance to find her there
increased her confusion and trembling. "Arthur," she gasped out, "I saw
him--I saw him--not a minute ago--in a cab--with some ladies; oh, my
dear, run after him. That was the way he went. Arthur, Arthur, why don't
you go? Never mind me--I can take care of myself."
"Who was it--how did he go?--why didn't you stop him, mother?" cried the
young man, rushing back to the spot she had left. Nothing was to be seen
there but the usual attendant group of railway porters, and the alarmed
cabman who had been keeping his eye on Mrs. Vincent. The poor widow
gasped as she gazed and saw no traces of the enemy who had eluded them.
"Oh, Arthur, my dear boy, I thought, in such a case, it ought to be a
man to speak to him," faltered Mrs. Vincent. "He went that way--that
way, look!--in a cab, with somebody in a blue veil."
Vincent rushed away in the direction she indicated, at a pace which he
was totally unused to, and of course quite unable to keep up beyond the
first heat; but few things could be more hopeless than to dash into the
whirl of vehicles in the crowded current of the New Road, with any vain
hope of identifying one which had ten minutes' start, and no more
distinctive mark of identity than the spectrum of a blue veil. He rushed
back again, angry with himself for losing breath in so vain an attempt,
just in time to place his mother in a carriage and jump in beside her
before the train started. Mrs. Vincent's anxiety, her questions which he
could not hear, her doubts whether it might not have been best to have
missed the train and followed Mr. Fordham, aggravated the much-tried
patience of her son beyond endurance. They set off upon their sad
journey with a degree of injured feeling on both sides, such as often
gives a miserable complication to a mutual anxiety. But the mother,
wounded and timid, feeling more than ever the difference between the boy
who was all her own and the man who had thoughts and impulses of which
she knew nothing, was naturally the first to recover and to make wistful
overtures of peace.
"Well, Arthur," she said, after a while, leaning forward to him, her
mild voice making a gentle murmur through the din of the journey,
"though it was very foolish of me not to speak to him when I saw him,
still, dear, he is gone and out of the way; that is a great comfort--we
will never, never let him come near Susan again. That is just what I was
afraid of; I have been saying to myself all day, 'What if he should go
to Lonsdale too, and deny it all?' but Providence, you see, dear, has
ordered it for us, and now he shall never come near my poor child
again."
"Do you think he has been to Lonsdale?" asked Vincent.
"My poor Susan!" said his simple mother, "she will be happier than ever
when we come to her with this dreadful news. Yes; I suppose he must have
been seeing her, Arthur--and I am glad it has happened while I was away,
and before we knew; and now he is gone," said the widow, looking out of
the carriage with a sigh of relief, as if she could still see the road
by which he had disappeared--"now he is gone, there will be no need for
any dreadful strife or arguments. God always arranges things for us so
much better than we can arrange them for ourselves. Fancy if he had come
to-morrow to tear her dear heart to pieces!--Oh, Arthur, I am very
thankful! There will be nothing to do now but to think best how to break
it to her. He had ladies with him; it is dreadful to think of such
villany. Oh, Arthur, do you imagine it could be his wife?--and somebody
in a blue veil."
"A blue veil!"--Mrs. Hilyard's message suddenly occurred to Vincent's
mind, with its special mention of that article of disguise. "If this man
is the man we suppose, he has accomplished one of his wishes," said the
minister, slowly; "and she will kill him as sure as he lives."
"Who will kill him?--I hope nothing has occurred about your friend's
child to agitate my Susan," said his mother. "It was all the kindness of
your heart, my dear boy; but it was very imprudent of you to let Susan's
name be connected with anybody of doubtful character. Oh, Arthur, dear,
we have both been very imprudent!--you have so much of my quick temper.
It was a punishment to me to see how impatient you were to-day; but
Susan takes after your dear father. Oh, my own boy, pray; pray for her,
that her heart may not be broken by this dreadful news."
And Mrs. Vincent leant back in her corner, and once more put down her
veil. Pray!--who was he to pray for? Susan, forlorn and innocent,
disappointed in her first love, but unharmed by any worldly soil or evil
passion?--or the other sufferers involved in more deadly sort, himself
palpitating with feverish impulses, broken loose from all his peaceful
youthful moorings, burning with discontents and aspirations, not
spiritual, but of the world? Vincent prayed none as he asked himself
that bitter question. He drew back in his seat opposite his mother, and
pondered in his heart the wonderful difference between the objects of
compassion to whom the world gives ready tears, and those of whom the
world knows and suspects nothing. Susan! he could see her mother
weeping over her in her white and tender innocence. What if, perhaps,
she broke her young heart? the shock would only send the girl with more
clinging devotion to the feet of the great Father; but as for himself,
all astray from duty and sober life, devoured with a consuming fancy,
loathing the way and the work to which he had been trained to believe
that Father had called him--who thought of weeping?--or for Her, whom
his alarmed imagination could not but follow, going forth remorseless
and silent to fulfil her promise, and kill the man who had wronged her?
Oh, the cheat of tears!--falling sweet over the young sufferers whom
sorrow blessed--drying up from the horrible complex pathways where other
souls, in undisclosed anguish, went farther and farther from God!
With such thoughts the mother and son hurried on upon their darkling
journey. It was the middle of the night when they arrived in Lonsdale--a
night starless, but piercing with cold. They were the only passengers
who got out at the little station, where two or three lamps glared
wildly on the night, and two pale porters made a faint bustle to forward
the long convoy of carriages upon its way. One of these men looked
anxiously at the widow, as if with the sudden impulse of asking a
question, or communicating some news, but was called off by his superior
before he could speak. Vincent unconsciously observed the look, and was
surprised and even alarmed by it, without knowing why. It returned to
his mind, as he gave his mother his arm to walk the remaining distance
home. Why did the man put on that face of curiosity and wonder? But, to
be sure, to see the mild widow arrive in this unexpected way in the
middle of the icy January night, must have been surprising enough to any
one who knew her, and her gentle decorous life. He tried to think no
more of it, as they set out upon the windy road, where a few
sparely-scattered lamps blinked wildly, and made the surrounding
darkness all the darker. The station was half a mile from the town, and
Mrs. Vincent's cottage was on the other side of Lonsdale, across the
river, which stole sighing and gleaming through the heart of the little
place. Somehow the sudden black shine of that water as they caught it,
crossing the bridge, brought a shiver and flash of wild imagination to
the mind of the Nonconformist. He thought of suicides, murders, ghastly
concealment, and misery; and again the face of the porter returned upon
him. What if something had happened while the watchful mother had been
out of the way? The wind came sighing round the corners with an
ineffectual gasp, as if it too had some warning, some message to
deliver. Instinctively he drew his mother's arm closer, and hurried her
on. Suggestions of horrible unthought-of evil seemed lurking everywhere
in the noiseless blackness of the night.
Mrs. Vincent shivered too, but it was with cold and natural agitation.
In her heart she was putting tender words together, framing tender
phrases--consulting with herself how she was to look, and how to speak.
Already she could see the half-awakened girl, starting up all glowing
and sweet from her safe rest, unforeboding of evil; and the widow
composed her face under the shadow of her veil, and sent back with an
effort the unshed tears from her eyes, that Susan might not see any
traces in her face, till she had "prepared her" a little, for that
dreadful, inevitable blow.
The cottage was all dark, as was natural--doubly dark to-night, for
there was no light in the skies, and the wind had extinguished the lamp
which stood nearest, and on ordinary occasions threw a doubtful flicker
on the little house. "Susan will soon hear us, she is such a light
sleeper," said Mrs. Vincent. "Ring the bell, Arthur. I don't like using
the knocker, to disturb the neighbours. Everybody would think it so
surprising to hear a noise in the middle of the night from our house.
There--wait a moment. That was a very loud ring; Susan must be sleeping
very soundly if that does not wake her up."
There was a little pause; not a sound, except the tinkling of the bell,
which they could hear inside as the peal gradually subsided, was in the
air; breathless silence, darkness, cold, an inhuman preternatural chill
and watchfulness, no welcome sound of awakening sleepers, only their own
dark shadows in the darkness, listening like all the hushed surrounding
world at that closed door.
"Poor dear! Oh, Arthur, it is dreadful to come and break her sleep,"
sighed Mrs. Vincent, whose strain of suspense and expectation heightened
the effect of the cold: "when will she sleep as sound again? Give
another ring, dear. How terribly dark and quiet it is! Ring again,
again, Arthur!--dear, dear me, to think of Susan in such a sound
sleep!--and generally she starts at any noise. It is to give her
strength to bear what is coming, poor child, poor child!"
The bell seemed to echo out into the silent road, it pealed so clearly
and loudly through the shut-up house, but not another sound disturbed
the air without or within. Mrs. Vincent began to grow restless and
alarmed. She went out into the road, and gazed up at the closed windows;
her very teeth chattered with anxiety and cold.
"It is very odd she does not wake," said the widow; "she must be rousing
now, surely. Arthur, don't look as if we had bad news. Try to command
your countenance, dear. Hush! don't you hear them stirring? Now, Arthur,
Arthur, oh remember not to look so dreadful as you did in Carlingford! I
am sure I hear her coming down-stairs. Hark! what is it? Ring again,
Arthur--again!"
The words broke confused and half-articulate from her lips; a vague
dread took possession of her, as of her son. For his part, he rang the
bell wildly without pausing, and applied the knocker to the echoing door
with a sound which seemed to reverberate back and back through the
darkness. It was not the sleep of youth Vincent thought of, as, without
a word to say, he thundered his summons on the cottage door. He was not
himself aware what he was afraid of; but in his mind he saw the porter's
alarmed and curious look, and felt the ominous silence thrilling with
loud clangour of his own vain appeals through the deserted house.
At length a sound--the mother and son both rushed speechless towards the
side-window, from which it came. The window creaked slowly open, and a
head, which was not Susan's, looked cautiously out. "Who is there?"
cried a strange voice; it's some mistake. This is Mrs. Vincent's, this
is, and nobody's at home. If you don't go away I'll spring the rattle,
and call Thieves, thieves--Fire! What do you mean coming rousing folks
like this in the dead of night?"
"Oh, Williams, are you there? Thank God!--then all is well," said Mrs.
Vincent, clasping her hands. "It is I--you need not be afraid--I and my
son: don't disturb Miss Susan, since she has not heard us--but come
down, and let us in;--don't disturb my daughter. It is I--don't you know
my voice?"
"Good Lord!" cried the speaker at the window; then in a different tone,
"I'm coming, ma'am--I'm coming." Instinctively, without knowing why,
Vincent drew his mother's arm within his own, and held her fast.
Instinctively the widow clung to him, and kept herself erect by his aid.
They did not say a word--no advices now about composing his countenance.
Mrs. Vincent's face was ghastly, had there been any light to see it. She
went sheer forward when the door was open, as though neither her eyes
nor person were susceptible of any other motion. An inexpressible air of
desolation upon the cottage parlour, where everything looked far too
trim and orderly for recent domestic occupation, brought to a climax
all the fanciful suggestions which had been tormenting Vincent. He
called out his sister's name in an involuntary outburst of dread and
excitement, "Susan! Susan!" The words pealed into the midnight
echoes--but there was no Susan to answer to the call.
"It is God that keeps her asleep to keep her happy," said his mother,
with her white lips. She dropt from his arm upon the sofa in a dreadful
pause of determination, facing them with wide-open eyes--daring them to
undeceive her--resolute not to hear the terrible truth, which already in
her heart she knew. "Susan is asleep, asleep!" she cried, in a terrible
idiocy of despair, always facing the frightened woman before her with
those eyes which knew better, but would not be undeceived. The shivering
midnight, the mother's dreadful looks, the sudden waking to all this
fright and wonder, were too much for the terrified guardian of the
house. She fell on her knees at the widow's feet.
"Oh, Lord! Miss Susan's gone! I'd have kep her if I had been here. I'd
have said her mamma would never send no gentleman but Mr. Arthur to
fetch her away. But she's gone. Good Lord! it's killed my missis--I knew
it would kill my missis. Oh, good Lord! good Lord! Run for a doctor, Mr.
Arthur; if the missis is gone, what shall we do?"
Vincent threw the frightened creature off with a savage carelessness of
which he was quite unconscious, and raised his mother in his arms. She
had fallen back in a dreary momentary fit which was not fainting--her
eyes fluttering under their half-closed lids, her lips moving with
sounds that did not come. The shock had struck her as such shocks strike
the mortal frame when it grows old. When sound burst at last from the
moving lips, it was in a babble that mocked all her efforts to speak.
But she was not unconscious of the sudden misery. Her eyes wandered
about, taking in everything around her, and at last fixed upon a letter
lying half-open on Susan's work-table, almost the only token of disorder
or agitation in the trim little room. The first sign of revival she
showed was pointing at it with a doubtful but impatient gesture. Before
she could make them understand what she meant, that "quick temper" of
which Mrs. Vincent accused herself blazed up in the widow's eyes. She
raised herself erect out of her son's arms, and seized the paper. It was
Vincent's letter to his sister, written from London after he had failed
in his inquiries about Mr. Fordham. In the light of this dreadful
midnight the young man himself perceived how alarming and peremptory
were its brief injunctions. "Don't write to Mr. Fordham again till my
mother's return; probably I shall bring her home: we have something to
say to you on this subject, and in the mean time be sure you do as I
tell you." Mrs. Vincent gradually recovered herself as she read this;
she said it over under her breath, getting back the use of her speech.
There was not much explanation in it, yet it seemed to take the place,
in the mother's confused faculties, of an apology for Susan. "She was
frightened," said Mrs. Vincent, slowly, with strange twitches about her
lips--"she was frightened." That was all her mind could take in at once.
Afterwards, minute by minute, she raised herself up, and came to
self-command and composure. Only as she recovered did the truth reveal
itself clearly even to Vincent, who, after the first shock, had been
occupied entirely by his mother. The young man's head throbbed and
tingled as if with blows. As she sat up and gazed at him with her own
recovered looks, through the dim ice-cold atmosphere, lighted faintly
with one candle, they both woke up to the reality of their position. The
shock of the discovery was over--Susan was gone; but where, and with
whom? There was still something to hope, if everything to fear.
"She is gone to her aunt Alice," said Mrs. Vincent, once more looking
full in the eyes of the woman who had been left in charge of the house,
and who stood shivering with cold and agitation, winding and unwinding
round her a thin shawl in which she had wrapped up her arms. "She has
gone to her aunt Alice--she was frightened, and thought something had
happened. To-morrow we can go and bring her home."
"Oh, good Lord! No; she ain't there," cried the frightened witness, half
inaudible with her chattering teeth.
"Or to Mrs. Hastings at the farm. Susan knows what friends I can trust
her to. Arthur, dear, let us go to bed. It's uncomfortable, but you
won't mind for one night," said the widow, with a gasp, rising up and
sitting down again. She dared not trust herself to hear any explanation,
yet all the time fixed with devouring eyes upon the face of the woman
whom she would not suffer to speak.
"Mother, for Heaven's sake let us understand it; let her speak--let us
know. Where has Susan gone? Speak out; never mind interruptions. Where
is my sister?" cried Vincent, grasping the terrified woman by the arm.
"Oh Lord! If the missis wouldn't look at me like that! I ain't to
blame!" cried Williams, piteously. "It was the day afore yesterday as
the ladies came. I come up to help Mary with the beds. There was the old
lady as had on a brown bonnet and the young miss in the blue veil----"
Vincent uttered a sudden exclamation, and looked at his mother; but she
would not meet his eyes--would not acknowledge any recognition of that
fatal piece of gauze. She gave a little gasp, sitting bolt upright,
holding fast by the back of a chair, but kept her eyes steadily and
sternly upon the woman's face.
"We tidied the best room for the lady, and Miss Susan's little closet;
and Mary had out the best sheets, for she says----"
"Mary--where's Mary?" cried Mrs. Vincent, suddenly.
"I know no more nor a babe," cried Williams, wringing her hands. "She's
along with Miss Susan--wherever that may be--and the one in the blue
veil."
"Go on, go on!" cried Vincent.
But his mother did not echo his cry. Her strained hand fell upon her lap
with a certain relaxation and relief; her gaze grew less rigid;
incomprehensible moisture came to her eyes. "Oh, Arthur, there's comfort
in it!" said Mrs. Vincent, looking like herself again. "She's taken
Mary, God bless her! she's known what she was doing. Now I'm more easy;
Williams, you can sit down and tell us the rest."
"Go on!" cried Vincent, fiercely. "Good heavens! what good can a
blundering country girl do here?--go on."
The women thought otherwise; they exchanged looks of sympathy and
thankfulness; they excited the impatient young man beside them, who
thought he knew the world, into the wildest exasperation by that pause
of theirs. His mother even loosed her bonnet off her aching head, and
ventured to lean back under the influence of that visionary consolation;
while Vincent, aggravated to the intolerable pitch, sprang up, and, once
more seizing Williams by the arm, shook her unawares in the violence of
his anxiety. "Answer me!" cried the young man; "you tell us everything
but the most important of all. Besides this girl--and Mary--who was with
my sister when she went away?"
"Oh Lord! you shake the breath out of me, Mr. Arthur--you do," cried the
woman. "Who? why, who should it be, to be sure, but him as had the best
right after yourself to take Miss Susan to her mamma? You've crossed her
on the road, poor dear," said the adherent of the house, wringing her
hands; "but she was going to her ma--that's where she was going. Mr.
Arthur's letter gave her a turn; and then, to be sure, when Mr. Fordham
came, the very first thing he thought upon was to take her to her
mamma."
Vincent groaned aloud. In his first impulse of fury he seized his hat
and rushed to the door to pursue them anyhow, by any means. Then,
remembering how vain was the attempt, came back again, dashed down the
hat he had put on, and seized upon the railway book in his pocket, to
see when he could start upon that desperate mission. Minister as he was,
a muttered curse ground through his teeth--villain! coward!
destroyer!--curse him! His passion was broken in the strangest way by
the composed sounds of his mother's voice.
"It was very natural," she said, with dry tones, taking time to form the
words as if they choked her; "and of course, as you say, Williams, Mr.
Fordham had the best right. He will take her to his mother's--or--or
leave her in my son's rooms in Carlingford; and as she has Mary with
her--Arthur," continued his mother, fixing a warning emphatic look upon
him as he raised his astonished eyes to her face, "you know that is
quite right: after you--Mr. Fordham is--the only person--that could have
taken care of her in her journey. There, I am satisfied. Perhaps,
Williams, you had better go to bed. My son and I have something to talk
of, now I feel myself."
"I'll go light the fire, and get you a cup of tea--oh Lord! what Miss
Susan would say if she knew you were here, and had got such a fright!"
cried the old servant; "but now you're composed, there's nothing as'll
do you good like a cup of tea."
"Thank you--yes; make it strong, and Mr. Arthur will have some too,"
said the widow; "and take care the kettle is boiling; and then,
Williams, you must not mind us, but go to bed."
Vincent threw down his book, and stared at her with something of that
impatience and half-contempt which had before moved him. "If the world
were breaking up, I suppose women could still drink tea!" he said,
bitterly.
"Oh, Arthur, my dear boy," cried his mother, "don't you see we must put
the best face on it now? Everybody must not know that Susan has been
carried away by a---- O God, forgive me! don't let _me_ curse him,
Arthur. Let us get away from Lonsdale, dear, before we say anything.
Words will do no good. Oh, my dear boy, till we know better, Mr. Fordham
is Susan's betrothed husband, and he has gone to take care of her to
Carlingford. Hush--don't say any more. I am going to compose myself,
Arthur, for my child's sake," cried the mother, with a smile of anguish,
looking into her son's face. How did she drive those tears back out of
her patient eyes? how did she endure to talk to the old servant about
what was to be done to-morrow--and how the sick lady was next door--till
the excited and shivering attendant could be despatched up-stairs and
got out of the way? Woman's weaker nature, that could mingle the common
with the great; or woman's strength, that could endure all things--which
was it? The young man, sitting by in a sullen, intolerable suspense,
waiting till it was practicable to rush away through the creeping gloom
of night after the fugitives, could no more understand these phenomena
of love and woe, than he could translate the distant mysteries of the
spheres.