Salem Chapel. Volume 1/2

It was Mr. Tufton himself who sat opposite – his large expanse of face, with the white hair which had been apostrophised as venerable at so many Salem tea-parties, and which Vincent himself had offered homage to, looming dimly through the green shade of the geraniums, as he sat with his back to the window. He had a green shade over his eyes besides, and his head moved with a slight palsied tremor, which was now the only remnant of that “visitation” which had saved his feelings, and dismissed more benignly than Tozer and his brother deacons the old pastor from his old pulpit. He sat very contentedly doing nothing, with his large feet in large loose slippers, and his elbows supported on the arms of his chair. By the evidence of Mrs. Tufton’s spectacles, and the newspaper lying on the table, it was apparent that she had been reading the ‘Carlingford Gazette’ to her helpless companions; and that humble journal, which young Vincent had kicked to the other end of his room before coming out, had made the morning pass very pleasantly to the three secluded inmates of Siloam Cottage, which was the name of the old minister’s humble home. Mr. Tufton said “’umble ‘ome,” and so did his wife. They came from storied Islington, both of them, and were of highly respectable connections, not to say that Mrs. Tufton had a little property as well; and, acting in laudable opposition to the general practice of poor ministers’ wives, had brought many dividends and few children to the limited but comfortable fireside. Mr. Vincent could not deny that it was comfortable in its way, and quite satisfied its owners, as he sat down in the shade of the geraniums in front of the fire, between Adelaide Tufton and her father; but, oh heavens! to think of such a home as all that, after Homerton and high Nonconformist hopes, could come to himself! The idea, however, was one which did not occur to the young minister. He sat down compassionately, seeing no analogy whatever between his own position and theirs; scarcely even seeing the superficial contrast, which might have struck anybody, between his active youth and their helplessness and suffering. He was neither hard-hearted nor unsympathetic, but somehow the easy moral of that contrast never occurred to him. Adelaide Tufton’s bloodless countenance conveyed an idea of age to Arthur Vincent; her father was really old. The young man saw no grounds on which to form any comparison. It was natural enough for the old man and ailing woman to be as they were, just as it was natural for him, in the height of his early manhood, to rejoice in his strength and youth.

“So there was a party at Mr. Tozer’s last night – and you were there, Mr. Vincent,” said old Mrs. Tufton, a cheerful active old lady, with pink ribbons in her cap, which asserted their superiority over the doubtful light and the green shade of the geraniums. “Who did you have? The Browns and the Pigeons, and – everybody else, of course. Now tell me, did Mrs. Tozer make tea herself, or did she leave it to Phœbe?”

“As well as I can remember, she did it herself,” said the young pastor.

“Exactly what I told you, mamma,” said Adelaide, from her chair. “Mrs. Tozer doesn’t mean Phœbe to make tea this many a year. I daresay she wants her to marry somebody, the little flirting thing. I suppose she wore her pink, Mr. Vincent – and Mrs. Brown that dreadful red-and-green silk of hers; and didn’t they send you over a shape of jelly this morning? Ha, ha! I told you so, mamma; that was why it never came to me.”

“Pray let me send it to you,” cried Vincent, eagerly.

The offer was not rejected, though coquetted with for a few minutes. Then Mr. Tufton broke in, in solemn bass.

“Adelaide, we shouldn’t talk, my dear, of pinks and green silks. Providence has laid you aside, my love, from temptations; and you remember how often I used to say in early days, No doubt it was a blessing, Jemima, coming when it did, to wean our girl from the world; she might have been as fond of dress as other girls, and brought us to ruin, but for her misfortune. Everything is for the best.”

“Oh, bother!” said Adelaide, sharply – “I don’t complain, and never did; but everybody else finds my misfortune, as they call it, very easy to be borne, Mr. Vincent – even papa, you see. There is a reason for everything, to be sure; but how things that are hard and disagreeable are always to be called for the best, I can’t conceive. However, let us return to Phœbe Tozer’s pink dress. Weren’t you rather stunned with all their grandeur? You did not think we could do as much in Salem, did you? Now tell me, who has Mrs. Brown taken in hand to do good to now? I am sure she sent you to somebody; and you’ve been to see somebody this morning,” added the quick-witted invalid, “who has turned out different from your expectations. Tell me all about it, please.”

“Dear Adelaide does love to hear what’s going on. It is almost the only pleasure she has – and we oughtn’t to grudge it, ought we?” said Adelaide’s mother.

“Stuff!” muttered Adelaide, in a perfectly audible aside. “Now I think of it, I’ll tell you who you’ve been to see. That woman in Back Grove Street – there! What do you think of that for a production of Salem, Mr. Vincent? But she does not really belong to Carlingford. She married somebody who turned out badly, and now she’s in hiding that he mayn’t find her; though most likely, if all be true, he does not want to find her. That’s her history. I never pretend to tell more than I know. Who she was to begin with, or who he is, or whether Hilyard may be her real name, or why she lives there and comes to Salem Chapel, I can’t tell; but that’s the bones of her story, you know. If I were a clever romancer like some people, I could have made it all perfect for you, but I prefer the truth. Clever and queer, isn’t she? So I have guessed by what people say.”

“Indeed, you seem to know a great deal more about her than I do,” said the astonished pastor.

“I daresay,” assented Adelaide, calmly. “I have never seen her, however, though I can form an idea of what she must be like, all the same. I put things together, you see; and it is astonishing the number of scraps of news I get. I shake them well down, and then the broken pieces come together; and I never forget anything, Mr. Vincent,” she continued, pausing for a moment to give him a distinct look out of the pale-blue eyes, which for the moment seemed to take a vindictive feline gleam. “She’s rather above the Browns and the Tozers, you understand. Somehow or other, she’s mixed up with Lady Western, whom they call the Young Dowager, you know. I have not made that out yet, though I partly guess. My lady goes to see her up two pairs of stairs in Back Grove Street. I hope it does her ladyship good to see how the rest of the world manage to live and get on.”

“I am afraid, Adelaide, my dear,” said Mr. Tufton, in his bass tones, “that my young brother will not think this very improving conversation. Dear Tozer was speaking to me yesterday about the sermon to the children. I always preached them a sermon to themselves about this time of the year. My plan has been to take the congregation in classes; the young men – ah, and they’re specially important, are the young men! Dear Tozer suggested that some popular lectures now would not come amiss. After a long pastorate like mine,” said the good man, blandly, unconscious that dear Tozer had already begun to suggest a severance of that tie before gentle sickness did it for him, “a congregation may be supposed to be a little unsettled, – without any offence to you, my dear brother. If I could appear myself and show my respect to your ministry, it would have a good effect, no doubt; but I am laid aside, laid aside, brother Vincent! I can only help you with my prayers.”

“But dear, dear Mr. Tufton!” cried his wife, “bless you, the chapel is twice as full as it was six months ago – and natural too, with a nice young man.”

“My dear!” said the old minister in reproof. “Yes, quite natural – curiosity about a stranger; but my young brother must not be elated; nor discouraged when they drop off. A young pastor’s start in life is attended by many trials. There is always a little excitement at first, and an appearance of seats letting and the ladies very polite to you. Take it easily, my dear brother! Don’t expect too much. In a year or two – by-and-by, when things settle down – then you can see how it’s going to be.”

“But don’t you think it possible that things may never settle down, but continue rising up instead?” said Mr. Vincent, making a little venture in the inspiration of the moment.

Mr. Tufton shook his head and raised his large hands slowly, with a deprecating regretful motion, to hold them over the fire. “Alas! he’s got the fever already,” said the old minister. “My dear young brother, you shall have my experience to refer to always. You’re always welcome to my advice. Dear Tozer said to me just yesterday, ‘You point out the pitfalls to him, Mr. Tufton, and give him your advice, and I’ll take care that he shan’t go wrong outside,’ says dear Tozer. Ah, an invaluable man!”

“But a little disposed to interfere, I think,” said Vincent, with an irrestrainable inclination to show his profound disrelish of all the advice which was about to be given him.

Mr. Tufton raised his heavy forefinger and shook it slowly. “No – no. Be careful, my dear brother. You must keep well with your deacons. You must not take up prejudices against them. Dear Tozer is a man of a thousand – a man of a thousand! Dear Tozer, if you listen to him, will keep you out of trouble. The trouble he takes and the money he spends for Salem Chapel is, mark my words, unknown – and,” added the old pastor, awfully syllabling the long word in his solemn bass, “in-con-ceiv-able.”

“He is a bore and an ass for all that,” said the daring invalid opposite, with perfect equanimity, as if uttering the most patent and apparent of truths. “Don’t you give in to him, Mr. Vincent. A pretty business you will have with them all,” she continued, dropping her knitting-needles and lifting her pale-blue eyes, with their sudden green gleam, to the face of the new-comer with a rapid perception of his character, which, having no sympathy in it, but rather a certain mischievous and pleased satisfaction in his probable discomfiture, gave anything but comfort to the object of her observation. “You are something new for them to pet and badger. I wonder how long they’ll be of killing Mr. Vincent. Papa’s tough; but you remember, mamma, they finished off the other man before us in two years.”

“Oh, hush, Adelaide, hush! you’ll frighten Mr. Vincent,” cried the kind little mother, with uneasy looks: “when he comes to see us and cheer us up – as I am sure is very kind of him – it is a shame to put all sorts of things in his head, as papa and you do. Never mind Adelaide, Mr. Vincent, dear. Do your duty, and never fear anybody; that’s always been my maxim, and I’ve always found it answer. Not going away, are you? Dear, dear! and we’ve had no wise talk at all, and never once asked for your poor dear mother – quite well, I hope? – and Miss Susan? You should have them come and see you, and cheer you up. Well, good morning, if you must go; don’t be long before you come again.”

“And, my dear young brother, don’t take up any prejudices,” interposed Mr. Tufton, in tremulous bass, as he pressed Vincent’s half-reluctant fingers in that large soft flabby ministerial hand. Adelaide added nothing to these valedictions; but when she too had received his leave-taking, and he had emerged from the shadow of the geraniums, the observer paused once more in her knitting. “This one will not hold out two years,” said Adelaide, calmly, to herself, no one else paying any attention; and she returned to her work with the zest of a spectator at the commencement of an exciting drama. She did double work all the afternoon under the influence of this refreshing stimulant. It was quite a new interest in her life.

Meanwhile young Vincent left the green gates of Siloam Cottage with no very comfortable feelings – with feelings, indeed, the reverse of comfortable, yet conscious of a certain swell and elevation in his mind at the same moment. It was for him to show the entire community of Carlingford the difference between his reign and the old regime. It was for him to change the face of affairs – to reduce Tozer into his due place of subordination, and to bring in an influx of new life, intelligence, and enlightenment over the prostrate butterman. The very sordidness and contraction of the little world into which he had just received so distinct a view, promoted the revulsion of feeling which now cheered him. The aspiring young man could as soon have consented to lose his individuality altogether as to acknowledge the most distant possibility of accepting Tozer as his guide, philosopher, and friend. He went back again through Grove Street, heated and hastened on his way by those impatient thoughts. When he came as far as Salem, he could not but pause to look at it with its pinched gable and mean little belfry, innocent of a bell. The day was overclouded, and no clearness of atmosphere relieved the aspect of the shabby chapel, with its black railing, and locked gates, and dank flowerless grass inside. To see anything venerable or sacred in the aspect of such a place, required an amount of illusion and glamour which the young minister could not summon into his eyes. It was not the centre of light in a dark place, the simple tribune from which the people’s preacher should proclaim, to the awe and conviction of the multitude, that Gospel once preached to the poor, of which he flattered himself he should be the truest messenger in Carlingford. Such had been the young man’s dreams in Homerton – dreams mingled, it is true, with personal ambition, but full notwithstanding of generous enthusiasm. No – nothing of the kind. Only Salem Chapel, with so many pews let, and so many still to be disposed of, and Tozer a guardian angel at the door. Mr. Vincent was so far left to himself as to give vent to an impatient exclamation as he turned away. But still matters were not hopeless. He himself was a very different man from Mr. Tufton. Kindred spirits there must surely be in Carlingford to answer to the call of his. Another day might dawn for the Nonconformists, who were not aware of their own dignity. With this thought he retraced his steps a little, and, with an impulse which he did not explain to himself, threaded his way up a narrow lane and emerged into Back Grove Street, about the spot where he had lately paid his pastoral visit, and made so unexpected an acquaintance. This woman – or should he not say lady? – was a kind of first-fruits of his mission. The young man looked up with a certain wistful interest at the house in which she lived. She was neither young nor fair, it is true, but she interested the youthful Nonconformist, who was not too old for impulses of chivalry, and who could not forget her poor fingers scarred with her rough work. He had no other motive for passing the house but that of sympathy and compassion for the forlorn brave creature who was so unlike her surroundings; and no throbbing pulse or trembling nerve forewarned Arthur Vincent of the approach of fate.

At that moment, however, fate was approaching in the shape of a handsome carriage, which made quite an exaggeration of echo in this narrow back-street, which rang back every jingle of the harness and dint of the hoofs from every court and opening. It drew up before Mrs. Hilyard’s door – at the door of the house, at least, in which Mrs. Hilyard was a humble lodger; and while Vincent slowly approached, a brilliant vision suddenly appeared before him, rustling forth upon the crowded pavement, where the dirty children stood still to gape at her. A woman – a lady – a beautiful dazzling creature, resplendent in the sweetest English roses, the most delicate bewildering bloom. Though it was but for a moment, the bewildered young minister had time to note the dainty foot, the daintier hand, the smiling sunshiny eyes, the air of conscious supremacy, which was half command and half entreaty – an ineffable combination. That vision descended out of the heavenly chariot upon the mean pavement just as Mr. Vincent came up; and at the same moment a ragged boy, struck speechless, like the young minister, by the apparition, planted himself full in her way with open mouth and staring eyes, too much overpowered by sudden admiration to perceive that he stopped the path. Scarcely aware what he was doing, as much beauty-struck as his victim, Vincent, with a certain unconscious fury, seized the boy by the collar, and swung him impatiently off the pavement, with a feeling of positive resentment against the imp, whose rags were actually touching those sacred splendid draperies. The lady made a momentary pause, turned half round, smiled with a gracious inclination of her head, and entered at the open door, leaving the young pastor in an incomprehensible ecstasy, with his hat off, and all his pulses beating loud in his ears, riveted, as the romancers say, to the pavement. When the door shut he came to himself, stared wildly into the face of the next passenger who came along the narrow street, and then, becoming aware that he still stood uncovered, grew violently red, put on his hat, and went off at a great pace. But what was the use of going off? The deed was done. The world on the other side of these prancing horses was a different world from that on this side. Those other matters, of which he had been thinking so hotly, had suddenly faded into a background and accessories to the one triumphant figure which occupied all the scene. He scarcely asked himself who was that beautiful vision? The fact of her existence was at the moment too overpowering for any secondary inquiries. He had seen her – and lo! the universe was changed. The air tingled softly with the sound of prancing horses and rolling wheels, the air breathed an irresistible soft perfume, which could nevermore die out of it, the air rustled with the silken thrill of those womanly robes. There she had enthroned herself – not in his startled heart, but in the palpitating world, which formed in a moment’s time into one great background and framework for that beatific form.

What the poor young man had done to be suddenly assailed and carried off his feet by this wonderful and unexpected apparition, we are unable to say. He seemed to have done nothing to provoke it: approaching quietly as any man might do, pondering grave thoughts of Salem Chapel, and how he was to make his post tenable, to be transfixed all at once and unawares by that fairy lance, was a spite of fortune which nobody could have predicted. But the thing was done. He went home to hide his stricken head, as was natural; tried to read, tried to think of a popular series of lectures, tried to lay plans for his campaign and heroic desperate attempts to resuscitate the shopkeeping Dissenterism of Carlingford into a lofty Nonconformist ideal. But vain were the efforts. Wherever he lifted his eyes, was not She there, all-conquering and glorious? when he did not lift his eyes, was not she everywhere Lady Paramount of the conscious world? Womankind in general, which had never, so to speak, entered his thoughts before, had produced much trouble to poor Arthur Vincent since his arrival in Carlingford. But Phœbe Tozer, pink and blooming – Mrs. Hilyard, sharp and strange – Adelaide Tufton, pale spectator of a life with which she had nothing to do – died off like shadows, and left no sign of their presence. Who was She?