“Mother, dear,” said Vincent, with a tremulous smile, “you shall come here, Susan and you, to me; and we shall all be together again—and comfort each other,” he added, with a deeper gravity still, thinking of his own lot.
His mother did not answer in many words. She said, “My own boy!” softly, following him with her eyes. It was hard, even with Susan’s dreadful danger before her, to help being tearfully happy in seeing him again—in being his guest—in realising the full strength of his manhood and independence. She gave herself up to that feeling of maternal pride and consolation as she once more dried the tears which would come, notwithstanding all her efforts. Then he sat down beside her, and resigned himself to that confidential talk which can rarely be but between members of the same family. He had unburdened his mind unconsciously in his letters about Tozer and the deacons; and it cannot be told what a refreshment it was to be able to utter roundly in words his sentiments on all those subjects. The power of saying it out with no greater hindrance than her mild remonstrances, mingled, as they were, with questions which enabled him to complete his sketches, and smiles of amusement at his descriptive powers, put him actually in better humour with Salem. He felt remorseful and charitable after he had said his worst.
“And are you sure, dear,” said Mrs. Vincent, at last resuming the subject nearest her heart, “that you can go away to-morrow without neglecting any duty? You must not neglect a duty, Arthur—not even for Susan’s sake. Whatever happens to us, you must keep right.”
“I have no duty to detain me,” said Vincent, hastily. Then a sudden glow came over the young man, a flush of happiness which stole upon him like a thief, and brightened his own personal firmament with a secret unacknowledgable delight; “but I must return early,” he added, with a momentary hesitation—“for if you won’t think it unkind to leave you, mother, I am engaged to dinner. I should scarcely like to miss it,” he concluded, after another pause, tying knots in his handkerchief, and taking care not to look at her as he spoke.
“To dinner, Arthur? I thought your people only gave teas,” said Mrs. Vincent, with a smile.
“The Salem people do; but this—is not one of the Salem people,” said the minister, still hesitating. “In fact, it would be ungracious of me not to go, and cowardly, too—for that curate, I believe, is to meet me—and Lady Western would naturally think——”
“Lady Western!” said Mrs. Vincent, with irrestrainable pleasure; “is that one of the great people in Carlingford?” The good woman wiped her eyes again with the very tenderest and purest demonstration of that adoration of rank which is said to be an English instinct. “I don’t mean to be foolish, dear,” she said, apologetically; “I know these distinctions of society are not worth your caring about; but to see my Arthur appreciated as he should be, is——” She could not find words to say what it was—she wound up with a little sob. What with trouble and anxiety, and pride and delight, and bodily fatigue added to all, tears came easiest that night.
Vincent did not say whether or not these distinctions of society were worth caring about. He sat abstractedly, untying the knots in his handkerchief, with a faint smile on his face. Then, while that pleasurable glow remained, he escorted his mother to his own sleeping-room, which he had given up to her, and saw that her fire burned brightly, and that all was comfortable. When he returned to poke his solitary fire, it was some time before he took out the letter which had disturbed his peace. The smile died away first by imperceptible degrees from his face. He gradually erected himself out of the meditative lounge into which he had fallen; then, with a little start, as if throwing dreams away, he took out and examined the letter. The more he looked at it, the graver and deeper became the anxiety in his face. It had every appearance of being genuine in its bad writing and doubtful spelling. And Vincent started again with an unexplainable thrill of alarm when he thought how utterly unprotected his mother’s sudden journey had left that little house in Lonsdale. Susan had no warning, no safeguard. He started up in momentary fright, but as suddenly sat down again with a certain indignation at his own thoughts. Nobody could carry her off, or do any act of violence; and as for taking advantage of her solitude, Susan, a straightforward, simple-minded English girl, was safe in her own pure sense of right.
CHAPTER XIII.
NEXT morning Mr. Vincent got up early, with an indescribable commotion in all his thoughts. He was to institute inquiries which might be life or death to his sister, but yet could not keep his mind to the contemplation of that grave necessity. A flicker of private hope and expectation kept gleaming with uncertain light over the dark weight of anxiety in his heart. He could not help, in the very deepest of his thoughts about Susan, breaking off now and then into a momentary digression, which suddenly carried him into Lady Western’s drawing-room, and startled his heart with a thrill of conscious delight, secret and exquisite, which he could neither banish nor deny. In and out, and round about that grievous doubt which had suddenly disturbed the quiet history of his family, this capricious fairy played, touching all his anxious thoughts with thrills of sweetness. It seemed an action involuntary to himself, and over which he had no power; but it gave the young man an equally involuntary and causeless cheer and comfort. It did not seem possible that any dreadful discovery could be made that day, in face of the fact that he was to meet Her that night.