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.