“Mother, compose yourself. I have no evidence that it is true. I have discovered nothing,” cried Vincent, in alarm.
The widow dropped heavily into her chair, and sobbed aloud. “I can read it in your face,” she said. “Oh! my dear boy, have you seen that—that villain? Does he confess it? Oh, my Susan, my Susan! I will never forgive myself; I have killed my child.”
From this passion it was difficult to recover her, and Vincent had to represent so strongly the fact that he had ascertained nothing certain, and that, for anything he could tell, Fordham might still prove himself innocent, that he almost persuaded his own mind in persuading hers.
“His letters might be taken in at a place where he did not live, for convenience sake,” said Vincent. “The man might think me a dun, or something disagreeable. Fordham himself, for anything we can tell, may be very angry about it. Cheer up, mother; things are no worse than they were last night. I give you my word I have made no discovery, and perhaps to-morrow may bring us a letter clearing it all up.”
“Ah! Arthur, you are so young and hopeful. It is different with me, who have seen so many terrors come true,” said the mother, who notwithstanding was comforted. As for Vincent, he felt neither the danger nor the suspense. His whole soul was engrossed with the fact that it was time to dress; and it was with a little conscious sophistry that he himself made the best of it, and excused himself for his indifference.
“I can’t bear to leave you, mother, in such suspense and distress,” he said, looking at his watch; “but—I have to be at Lady Western’s at half-past six.”
Mrs. Vincent looked up with an expression of stupified surprise and pain for a moment, then brightened all at once. “My dear, I have laid out all your things,” she said, with animation. “Do you think I would let you miss it, Arthur? Never mind talking to me. I shall hear all about it when you come home to-night. Now go, dear, or you will be late. I will come and talk to you when you are dressing, if you don’t mind your mother? Well, perhaps not. I will stay here, and you can call me when you are ready, and I will bring you a cup of tea. I am sure you are tired, what with the fatigue and what with the anxiety. But you must try to put it off your mind, and enjoy yourself to-night.”
“Yes, mother,” said Vincent, hastening away; the tears were in her gentle eyes when she gave him that unnecessary advice. She pressed his hands fast in hers when he left her at last, repeating it, afraid in her own heart that this trouble had spoilt all the brightness of the opening hopes which she perceived with so much pride and joy. When he was gone, she sat down by the solitary fire, and cried over her Susan in an utter forlornness and helplessness, which only a woman, so gentle, timid, and unable to struggle for herself, could feel. Her son, in the mean time, walked down Grange Lane, first with a momentary shame at his own want of feeling, but soon, with an entire forgetfulness both of the shame and the subject of it, absorbed in thoughts of his reception there. With a palpitating heart he entered the dark garden, now noiseless and chill in winterly decay, and gazed at the lighted windows which had looked like distant planets to him the last time he saw them. He lingered looking at them, now that the moment approached so near. A remembrance of his former disappointment went to his heart with a momentary pang as he hesitated on the edge of his present happiness. Another moment and he had thrown himself again, with a degree of suppressed excitement wonderful to think of, upon the chances of his fate.
Not alarming chances, so far as could be predicated from the scene. A small room, the smaller half of that room which he had seen full of the pretty crowd of the summer-party, the folding-doors closed, and a curtain drawn across them; a fire burning brightly; groups of candles softly lighting the room in clusters upon the wall, and throwing a colourless soft illumination upon the pictures of which Lady Western was so proud. She herself, dropped amid billows of dark blue silk and clouds of black lace in a low easy-chair by the side of the fire, smiled at Vincent, and held out her hand to him without rising, with a sweet cordiality and friendliness which rapt the young man into paradise. Though Lucy Wodehouse was scarcely less pretty than the young Dowager, Mr. Vincent saw her as if he saw her not, and still less did he realise the presence of Miss Wodehouse, who was the shadow to all this brightness. He took the chair which Lady Western pointed to him by her side. He did not want anybody to speak; or anything to happen. The welcome was not given as to a stranger, but made him at once an intimate and familiar friend of the house. At once all his dreams were realised. The sweet atmosphere was tinged with the perfumy breath which always surrounded Her; the room, which was so fanciful and yet so home-like, seemed a reflection of her to his bewildered eyes; and the murmur of soft sound, as these two lovely creatures spoke to each other, made the most delicious climax to the scene; although the moment before he had been afraid lest the sound of a voice should break the spell. But the spell was not to be broken that night. Mr. Wentworth came in a few minutes after him, and was received with equal sweetness; but still the young Nonconformist was not jealous. It was he whose arm Lady Western appropriated, almost without looking at him as she did so, when they went to dinner. She had put aside the forms which were intended to keep the outer world at arm’s length. It was as her own closest personal friends that the little party gathered around the little table, just large enough for them, which was placed before the fire in the great dining-room. Lady Western was not a brilliant talker, but Mr. Vincent thought her smallest observation more precious than any utterance of genius. He listened to her with a fervour which few people showed when listening to him, notwithstanding his natural eloquence; but as to what he himself said in reply, he was entirely oblivious, and spoke like a man in a dream. When she clapped her pretty hands, and adjured the Churchman and the Nonconformist to fight out their quarrel, it was well for Vincent that Mr. Wentworth declined the controversy. The lecturer on Church and State was hors de combat; he was in charity with all men. The curate of St. Roque’s, who—blind and infatuated man!—thought Lucy Wodehouse the flower of Grange Lane, did not come in his way. He might pity him, but it was a sympathetic pity. Mr. Vincent took no notice when Miss Wodehouse launched tiny arrows of argument at him. She was the only member of the party who seemed to recollect his heresies in respect to Church and State—which, indeed, he had forgotten himself, and the state of mind which led to them. No such world existed now as that cold and lofty world which the young man of genius had seen glooming down upon his life, and shutting jealous barriers against his progress. The barriers were opened, the coldness gone—and he himself raised high on the sunshiny heights, where love and beauty had their perennial abode. He had gained nothing—changed in nothing—from his former condition: not even the golden gates of society had opened to the dissenting minister; but glorious enfranchisement had come to the young man’s heart. It was not Lady Western who had asked him to dinner—a distinction of which his mother was proud. It was the woman of all women who had brought him to her side, whose sweet eyes were sunning him over, whose voice thrilled to his heart. By her side he forgot all social distinctions, and all the stings contained in them. No prince could have reached more completely the ideal elevation and summit of youthful existence. Ambition and its successes were vulgar in comparison. It was a poetic triumph amid the prose tumults and downfalls of life.
When the two young men were left over their wine, a somewhat grim shadow fell upon the evening. The curate of St. Roque’s and the minister of Salem found it wonderfully hard to get up a conversation. They discussed the advantages of retiring with the ladies as they sat glum and reserved opposite each other—not by any means unlike, and, by consequence, natural enemies. Mr. Wentworth thought it an admirable plan, much more sensible than the absurd custom which kept men listening to a parcel of old fogies, who retained the habits of the last generation; and he proposed that they should join the ladies—a proposal to which Vincent gladly acceded. When they returned to the drawing-room, Lucy Wodehouse was at the piano; her sister sat at table with a pattern-book before her, doing some impossible pattern in knitting; and Lady Western again sat languid and lovely by the fire, with her beautiful hands in her lap, relieved from the dark background of the billowy blue dress by the delicate cambric and lace of her handkerchief. She was not doing anything, or looking as if she could do anything. She was leaning back in the low chair, with the rich folds of her dress sweeping the carpet, and her beautiful ungloved hands lying lightly across each other. She did not move when the gentlemen entered. She turned her eyes to them, and smiled those sweet welcoming smiles, which Vincent knew well enough were for both alike, yet which made his heart thrill and beat. Wentworth (insensible prig!) went to Lucy’s side, and began to talk to her over her music, now and then appealing to Miss Wodehouse. Vincent, whom no man hindered, and for whose happiness all the fates had conspired, invited by those smiling eyes, approached Lady Western with the surprised delight of a man miraculously blessed. He could not understand why he was permitted to be so happy. He drew a chair between her and the table, and, shutting out the other group by turning his back upon them, had her all to himself. She never changed her position, nor disturbed her sweet indolence, by the least movement. The fire blazed no longer. The candles, softly burning against the wall, threw no very brilliant light upon this scene. To Vincent’s consciousness, bewildered as he was by the supreme delight of his position, they were but two in a new world, and neither thing nor person disturbed the unimaginable bliss. But Miss Wodehouse, when she raised her eyes from her knitting, only saw the young Dowager leaning back in her chair, smiling the natural smiles of her sweet temper and kind heart upon the young stranger whom she had chosen to make a protégé of. Miss Wodehouse silently concluded that perhaps it might be dangerous for the young man, who knew no better, and that Lady Western always looked well in a blue dress. Such was the outside world’s interpretation of that triumphant hour of Vincent’s life.