NEXT morning the minister rose to the changed life and world which now
surrounded his way, if not with much less excitement, at least with a
more familiar knowledge of all the troubles which encompassed him. As he
sat over the pretended breakfast, for which he had no appetite, and not
even heart enough to make a show of eating, hearing close by the voice
of his sister's delirium, sometimes in faint murmurs, sometimes rising
into wild outcries of passion, and pondered all the circumstances of
this frightful calamity, it is not wonderful that his heart fainted
within him. He had found out quickly enough that it was an officer of
justice whom Tozer had succeeded, by what means he could not tell, in
removing from his house. His landlady knew all the facts sufficiently
well to be by times reproachful and by times sympathetic. The other
lodgers in the house, some of whom had already left for fear of
pollution, were equally aware of all the circumstances of the case; and
it was impossible to hope that a tale so exciting, known to so many,
could be long of spreading. The minister seemed to himself to look ruin
in the face, as he sat in profound dejection, leaning his head in his
hands. He had committed his sister's interests into the hands of the
best attorney he could hear of in Dover, that watch and search might be
made on the spot for any further information; and now the only thing
possible to be done was to secure some still more skilful agent in
London to superintend the case, and set all the machinery of detection
in motion to discover Mrs. Hilyard. Vincent had nothing in the world but
the income which he drew from the liberality of Salem; an income which
could ill stand the drain of these oft-repeated journeys, not to speak
of the expenses of Susan's defence. All that the minister had would not
be enough to retain a fit defender for her, if she had to undergo the
frightful ordeal of a trial. The very thought of it drove her unhappy
brother desperate. Would it not be better if she died and escaped that
crowning misery, which must kill her anyhow, if she survived to bear it?
But these ponderings were as unprofitable as they were painful. When he
had seen his mother, who whispered to him accounts of Susan's illness,
which his mind was too much preoccupied to understand, he went away
immediately to the railway, and hastened to town. While he stood waiting
in the lawyer's office, he took up listlessly, without knowing what he
was doing, the newspaper of the day. There he found the whole terrible
tale made into a romance of real life, in which his sister's name,
indeed, was withheld, but no other particular spared. As he stood wiping
the heavy dew from his forehead, half frantic with rage and despair, the
quick eye of his misery caught a couple of clerks in another corner of
the office, talking over another newspaper, full of lively interest and
excitement. It was Susan's story that interested them; the compiler had
heightened with romantic details those hideous bare facts which had
changed all his life, and made the entire world a chaos to Vincent; and
all over the country by this time, newspaper readers were waking up into
excitement about this new tale of love, revenge, and crime. The poor
minister put down the paper as if it had stung him, and drew back,
tingling in every nerve, from the table, where he could almost hear the
discussion which was going on about Miss----; where she could have
escaped to, and whether she would be found. It restored him to his
senses and self-command when he found himself face to face with the cool
lawyer, who waited for his tragic story as a matter of business, and who
had nothing to do with the heartbreaks or the disgrace which it
involved. He was detained there for some time, giving as full an account
as he could of all the circumstances, and describing as well as he could
his reasons for suspecting Mrs. Hilyard, and her mysterious appearance
at the scene of the murder. Vincent perceived, with a sensation of
comfort at his heart, that his story interested the acute attorney,
accustomed to the tricks and expedients of crime, who perceived at once
the circumstances of suspicion, and understood at once how to go about
it, and ferret the secret out. The minister himself grew steadier as he
entered into his narrative. No shivers of wonder or pain convulsed the
calm lawyer as he listened. Under his touch, Susan's dreadful position
became one not unprecedented, to be dealt with like any other condition
of actual life; and when Vincent, after furnishing all the information
he could, and satisfying himself that no time was to be lost in the
prosecution of the search for the real criminal, left the office to
return to Carlingford, it was with a mind somewhat calmed out of its
first horror. He went back again by the train, deeply depressed and
anxious, but not so susceptible to every glance and word as he had been
an hour or two before. He tried, indeed, to take a certain gloomy
satisfaction from the idea that now everything was known. Fear of
discovery could no longer appal the stricken household; and to meet the
horror in the face was less dreadful than to feel themselves skulking
under a secret shadow which might at any moment be found out. He set his
face sternly, and looked everybody full in the eyes who looked at him,
as he once more alighted at the familiar station. He accepted the fact
that people were talking of him, pitying him, contemplating him with
wonder and fright, as somehow involved in an atmosphere of tragedy and
crime. With this feeling he went slowly along George Street on his
homeward way, with no susceptibility left in him, so far as he was
aware, except as concerned this sudden calamity which had swallowed up
his life.
When suddenly the sound of a carriage stopping came dully upon his ears;
he would not have noted or heard it but for the sound that followed of
some one calling his own name, and the soft rush of footsteps on the
pavement; even then he did not turn round to see who called him. It was
accordingly with a thrill of strange emotion--a strange, sudden, guilty
suffusion of delight over all his tingling frame and aching heart, even
in the midst of his suffering, that he felt the light touch of Lady
Western's hand first laid on his arm, then softly stealing within it in
the sudden sympathy which possessed her as she looked up into his
colourless face. It was pity and natural kindness which prompted the
young Dowager to this unwonted familiar touch. She was sorry for him to
the bottom of her heart--she would fain have made him amends somehow for
the terrible evil which had come upon him. With the natural impulse of a
woman to caress or soothe, or cheat a man anyhow out of that look of
suffering which it is intolerable to her to see on his face, Lady
Western acted instinctively, without thinking what she did. She did her
beautiful hand into his arm, clung to him, looked up with her lovely
appealing face and eyes full of tears to the pale face of the minister,
which that touch moved beyond all expression. If he did not stop and
take her into his arms, and lean his great anguish upon her in a
sweetness of relief unspeakable and measureless, it was only because
ordinary rule and custom are stronger than even passion. He was as much
deceived as if he had done it, the poor young deluded soul. Out of the
thunder and storm, all at once, without prelude or warning, he thought
it was the light of love that broke upon him all radiant and glorious.
With that he could brave all, overcome all; for that he could be content
to fathom any depths of wretchedness. So he thought, as he looked down
from those sudden heights of unhoped-for tremulous blessedness into that
lovely face, and saw it trembling with divine compassion and tenderness.
So he thought the ice breaking, the depths stirring in his own soul.
Hope, deliverance, happiness, a delight more exquisite still, that
consolation of love which makes anguish itself sweet, breathed over the
poor young Nonconformist as that hand slid within his arm. His very
brain grew dizzy with the sweetness of relief, the sudden ease that
possessed his soul.
"Oh, Mr. Vincent, my heart is breaking; what shall we do--what shall we
do?" cried Lady Western. "If it is true, I shall never dare speak to you
again, and I feel for you to the bottom of my heart. Oh, Mr. Vincent,
you don't think she did it? I am sure she did not do it--your sister! It
was bad enough before," cried the lovely creature, crying without
restraint, but still holding his arm and gazing up into his face, "but
now my heart is broken. Oh, will you tell me what I must do? I will not
go to him, for he has been a bad man; and I dare not go to your dear
mother as I should like to go; and I feel for you, oh, to the very
bottom of my heart!"
"Then I can bear it," said Vincent. Though he did not speak another
word, the sound of his voice, the expression of his face, betrayed him.
He put his hand involuntarily upon the little hand that rested on his
arm. It was all so sudden that his self-command forsook him. A smile
trembled upon his face as he looked down at her with all his heart in
his eyes. "Then I can bear it," said the poor young minister,
overwhelmed and penetrated by that exquisite consolation. Lady Western
gave a little start of alarm as she read the unmistakable meaning in his
face. She withdrew her hand hastily with a flush of radiant colour and
downcast look of fright and shame. What had she done? Her confusion, her
agitation, her sudden withdrawal, did but increase the spell. To
Vincent's charmed soul it seemed that she had betrayed herself, and that
womanly reserve alone drew her back. He attended her to her carriage
with a tender devotion which could not express itself in words. When he
had put her in, he lingered, gazing at the face, now so troubled and
downcast, with a delicious feeling that he had a right to gaze at her.
"You have made me strong to bear all things," he said, in the low tone
of passion and secret joy. In the depth of his delusion he saw no other
meaning than sudden timidity and womanly reticence in her confused and
alarmed looks. When the carriage drove off he stood looking after it
with eyes full of dreamy light. Darkness surrounded him on every side,
darkness more hideous than a nightmare. The poor young soul believed for
that delicious moment that superlative and ineffable, like his misery,
was to be his joy.
Harder thoughts regained the mastery when he got within his own house
again. It was no longer the orderly, calm, well-regulated house which
had taken in the minister of Salem by way of adding yet a finer touch to
its own profound respectability. Susan's unhappy presence pervaded the
place. Boxes of other lodgers going away encumbered the hall, where the
landlady hovered weeping, and admitted the pastor sullenly with an
audible sob.
Though he had imagined himself invested in armour of light against all
these petty assaults, Vincent was not strong enough, even in the
fictitious strength given him by Lady Western's kindness, to bear the
reality of his position. The very face of his landlady brought before
him the whole array of faces at Salem, which he must shortly encounter,
all directed towards him in judicial severity--an awful tribunal. When
he reached the shelter of his room up-stairs, the 'Carlingford Gazette'
lay upon his table, folded out so as to show that mysterious story of
Miss----, which some one in the house had certainly identified. The poor
minister took it in his hands with an impulse to tear it in pieces--to
trample it under foot--to give some outlet, now he was by himself, to
the rage and indignation with which he saw his own calamity turned into
a romance for the amusement of the public. He checked himself with a
bitter smile at his own folly; unconsciously he bethought himself of
Tozer's back-parlour, of Mr. Tufton's sitting-room, of all the places
about where he had seen his people gleaning information and amusement
from the 'Carlingford Gazette.' How the little paper, generally so
harmless, would amuse and excite its readers to-day! What surmises there
would be, and how soon the fatal knowledge would ooze out and be talked
over on all sides! It was no matter of feeling to him--it was ruin in
every way to the poor young minister, whose credit and living depended
solely upon the caprice of his "flock." The sight of the newspaper had
so stunned him, that it was some time before he perceived a letter lying
under it on the table. When he saw that the post-mark was Dover, he
snatched up this letter eagerly and tore it open. It was from the
lawyer whom he had consulted there. For the first moment he did not
comprehend the information it conveyed. Good news!--what news could be
good under his dreadful circumstances? The young man's mind was
stupified, and could not take it in. It was the copy of a doctor's
certificate--the opinion of a famous surgeon who had been summoned from
London--to the effect that Colonel Mildmay's wound was not necessarily
fatal, and that if fever did not come on he might recover. The minister
read it over again and again before he could comprehend it, and when he
did comprehend it, the fact seemed rather an aggravation than a comfort
to his misery. He was not dead--this destroyer. Perhaps at this moment,
when his unhappy victim lay struggling between life and death, he, with
the horrible good fortune of wickedness, was coming back from the edge
of the grave. At the first shock it did not seem good news to Vincent.
Not dead!--"the cursed villain," he said through his clenched teeth. The
earth was not rid of that pitiless wretch. It looked like another grand
injustice in the world, where all the landmarks were overturned, and
only evil seemed to prosper. He did not connect it anyhow with possible
relief or deliverance to Susan; on the contrary, it raised in his own
mind all the resentment and rage which had been quenched by Mildmay's
supposed death. He could scarcely compose himself after that unexpected
information. If all went well, it would naturally change the character
of the case--perhaps, under the circumstances, there might be no
prosecution, said the lawyer's letter. Vincent was young--excited out
of all self-command or prudential considerations. In his soul he
resented even this hope, which might still save his sister, and grudged
what he felt to be the diabolical good-luck of her destroyer. Not
dead!--not going to die!--not punished anyhow. About, after all the
misery he had occasioned, to recover, and go on prosperously again, and
spread wretchedness and ruin upon others. "He shall render me an
account," cried the minister fiercely to himself. "He shall answer for
it to me!" He felt it intolerable, that this guilty soul should escape
its punishment.
Thoughts more reasonable, however, came to him after a time. He began to
see the importance of the intelligence to Susan--and even to himself. At
least she could not be accused of shedding blood--at least she might be
hidden somewhere in her shame, poor lost soul, and kept from the cruel
eyes of the world. When he began to feel the influence of this gleam of
comfort, he ventured to go to the sick-room to tell his mother, whom he
had not yet seen; but Mrs. Vincent was deaf and insensible to everything
but her child, whose need and danger were too urgent to permit more
distant spectres, however terrible, to be visible in her sick-chamber.
Mary, already worn out with fatigue, had gone to bed with a headache,
with the liveliest conviction in her mind that she had taken the fever
too. The widow, who had lived for the past week as though she had no
physical frame at all, sat sleepless, with hot eyes and pallid face, by
her daughter's bed. She could still smile--smiles more heart-breaking
than any outcry of anguish--and leaned her poor head upon her son, as
he came near to her, with a tender pressure of her arms and strain of
absolute dependence which went to his heart. She could not speak, or
say, as she had said so often, that her boy must take care of his
sister--that Susan had no one else to stand by her. Leaning upon him in
an unspeakable appeal of love and weakness, smiling on him with her
wistful quivering lips, was all the poor mother could do now.
All; for in that room no one could speak. One voice filled its silence.
The restless movement of the head on that pillow turning from side to
side in search of the rest which was nowhere to be found, stilled every
other motion. Not even fever could flush the marble whiteness of her
face. Awfully alone, in her mother's anxious presence, with her brother
by her bedside, Susan went on unconscious through the wild distracted
world of her own thoughts--through what had been her own thoughts before
horror and anguish cast them all astray. Vincent stood aside in
breathless attention like the rest, before he had been many minutes in
the room. We say to each other how strange it is that no heart can ever
fully communicate itself to another; but when that revelation does take
place, awful is the spectacle. All unawares, in her dread distraction,
Susan opened up her heart.
"What does it matter what they will say?" said Susan; "I will never see
them again. Unless--yes, put down her veil; she is pretty, very pretty;
but what has Herbert to do with her? He said it was me he wanted; and
why did he bring me away if he did not love me? Love me! and deceived
me, and told me lies. Oh God, oh God! is it not Carlingford? Where is
it? I am taking God's name in vain. I was not thinking of Him--, I was
thinking----. His name is Fordham, Herbert Fordham,--do you hear? What
do you mean by Mildmay? I know no Mildmay. Stop and let me think.
Herbert--Herbert! Oh, where are you--where are you? Do you think it
never could be him, but only a lie? Well! if he did not love me, I could
bear it; but why, why did he cheat me, and bring me away? The door is
locked; they will not let me get out. Herbert! was there never, never
any Herbert in the world? Oh, come back, even if you are only a dream!
Locked! If they would only kill me! What do they mean to do with me? Oh
God, oh God! but I must marry him if he says so. I must, must marry him,
though he has told me lies. I must, whatever he does. Even if I could
get through the window and escape; for they will call me wicked. Oh,
mamma, mamma! and Arthur a minister, and to bring disgrace on him! But I
am not disgraced. Oh no, no; never, never!-- I will die first-- I will
kill him first. Open the door; oh, open the door! Let me go!"
She struggled up in one of her wilder paroxysms. She had thrown herself
half out of bed, rising up wildly, and tossing her arms into the air,
before her startled brother could rush forward to control her. But as
the voice of the unhappy girl rose into frenzy, some unseen attendants
stole in and took her out of his unskilful hands. The sight was too
painful for unaccustomed eyes--for eyes of love, which could scarcely
bear, even for her own sake, to see such means of restraint employed
upon Susan. Mrs. Vincent stood by, uttering unconscious cries, imploring
the two strong women who held her daughter, oh, not to hurt her, not to
grasp her so tightly; while Susan herself beat the air in vain, and
entreated, with passionate outcries, to be set free--to be let go. When
she was again subdued, and sank into the quiet of exhaustion, Vincent
withdrew from this saddest scene of all, utterly depressed and
broken-spirited. The wretch lived who had wrought this dread wreck and
ruin. What did it matter? Within that room it gave no relief, eased no
heart, to say that he was not dead. Forms more terrific still than those
of law and public vengeance--madness and death--stood on either side of
Susan's bed; till they had fought out the desperate quarrel, what matter
to those most immediately concerned whether a greater or a lesser
penalty lowered over her head? The minister went back to his own
retirement with an aching heart, utterly dejected and depressed. He
threw himself into a chair to think it all over, as he said to himself;
but as he sat there, hopeless and solitary, his mind strayed from Susan.
Could any one blame him? Who does not know what it is to have one secret
spot of personal consolation to fly to in the midst of trouble? Vincent
betook himself there in the utter darkness of everything around. Once
more he seemed to feel that sudden touch which took away half his
burden. No words could have spoken to his heart like that fairy hand
upon his arm. He brooded over it, not thinking, only living over again
the moment which had made so great a difference in the world. He forgot
Fordham; he forgot everything; he took neither reason nor likelihood
with him in his self-delusion. A sudden rosy mist suffused once more the
cruel earth upon which he was standing; whatever came, he had something
of his own to fall back upon, an ineffable secret sweetness, which
stanched every wound before it was made. The young minister, out of the
very depths of calamity, escaped into this garden of delights; he put
aside the intolerable misery of the house; he thrust away from him all
the lesser troubles which bristled thick in front of him in the very
name of Salem. He fled to that one spot of joy which he thought remained
to him in the middle of the waste, doubly sweet and precious. It gave
him strength to hold out through his trouble, without being overwhelmed.
He escaped to that delicious resting-place almost against his will, not
able to resist the charm of the indescribable solace he found there. He
alone, of all concerned, had that footbreadth of personal happiness to
take refuge in amid the bitter storm. He did not know it was all
delusion, self-deception, a woeful miserable blunder. He hugged it to
his heart in secret, and took a comfort not to be spoken from the
thought. Vanity of vanities; but nothing else in the world could have
stolen with such fairy balms of consolation and strength to the heart of
the poor minister. It was not long till he was called to face his fate
again, and all the heavy front of battle set in array against him; but
it was with a feeling of sweet guilt that he started up in the winter
twilight, and left his room to see Tozer, who waited for him below. That
room henceforward was inhabited by the fairy vision. When he went back
to it, Love, the consolatrix, met him again, stealing that visionary
hand within his arm. Blank darkness dwelt all around; here, falsest,
fairest mirage of imagination, palpitated one delicious gleam of light.