Mrs. Vincent shook her head—her face grew more and more troubled.
“I don’t know about reasons for keeping a child from its father,” she said, still shaking her head. “My dear, dear boy, I hope no designing woman has got a hold upon you. Why did you start so, Arthur? what had Mr. Fordham to do with the child? Susan would open my letters, of course, and I daresay she will make them very comfortable; but, Arthur dear, though I don’t blame you, it was very imprudent. Is Colonel Mildmay the lady’s husband? or—or what? Dear boy, you should have thought of Susan—Susan, a young girl, must not be mixed up with anybody of doubtful character. It was all your good heart, I know, but it was very imprudent, to be sure.”
Vincent laughed, in a kind of agony of mingled distress, anxiety, and strange momentary amusement. His mother and he were both blaming each other for the same fault. Both of them had equally yielded to kind feelings, and the natural impulse of generous hearts, without any consideration of prudence. But his mistake could not be attended by any consequences a hundredth part so serious as hers.
“In the mean time, we must do something,” he said. “If he has no friends, he has at least an address, I suppose. Susan”—and a flush of indignation and affectionate anger crossed the young man’s face—“Susan, no doubt, writes to the rascal. Susan! my sister! Good heaven!”
“Arthur!” said Mrs. Vincent. “Your dear papa always disapproved of such exclamations: he said they were just a kind of oath, though people did not think so. And you ought not to call him a rascal without proof—indeed, it is very sinful to come to such hasty judgments. Yes, I have got the address written down—it is in my pocket-book. But what shall you do? Will you write to himself, Arthur? or what? To be sure, it would be best to go to him and settle it at once.”
“Oh, mother, have a little prudence now,” cried the afflicted minister; “if he were base enough to propose marriage to Susan (confound him! that’s not an oath—my father himself would have said as much) under such circumstances, don’t you think he has the courage to tell a lie as well? I shall go up to town, and to his address to-morrow, and see what is to be found there. You must rest in the mean time. Writing is out of the question; what is to be done, I must do—and without a moment’s loss of time.”
The mother took his hand again, and put her handkerchief to her eyes—“God bless my dear boy,” she said, with a mother’s tearful admiration—“Oh, what a thing for me, Arthur, that you are grown up and a man, and able to do what is right in such a dreadful difficulty as this! You put me in mind more and more of your dear father when you settle so clearly what is to be done. He was always ready to act when I used to be in a flutter, which was best. And, oh, how good has the Father of the fatherless been to me in giving me such a son!”
“Ah, mother,” said the young minister, “you gave premature thanks before, when you thought the Father of the fatherless had brought poor Susan a happy lot. Do you say the same now?”
“Always the same, Arthur dear,” cried his mother, with tears—“always the same. If it is even so, is it me, do you think, or is it Him that knows best?”
After this the agitation and distress of the first meeting gradually subsided. That mother, with all her generous imprudence and innocence of heart, was, her son well knew, the tenderest, the most indulgent, the most sympathetic of all his friends. Though the little—the very little insight he had obtained into life and the world had made him think himself wiser than she was in some respects, nothing had ever come between them to disturb the boy’s half-adoring, half-protecting love. He bethought himself of providing for her comfort, as she sat looking at him in the easy-chair, with her eyes smiling on him through their tears, patiently sipping the tea, which was a cold and doubtful infusion, nothing like the fragrant lymph of home. He poked the fire till it blazed, and drew her chair towards it, and hunted up a footstool which he had himself kicked out of the way, under the sofa, a month before. When he looked at the dear tender fresh old face opposite to him, in that close white cap which even now, after the long fatiguing journey, looked fresher and purer than other people’s caps and faces look at their best, a thaw came upon the young man’s heart. Nature awoke and yearned in him. A momentary glimpse crossed his vision of a humble happiness long within his reach, which never till now, when it was about to become impossible for ever, had seemed real or practicable, or even desirable before.