Even while listening to the doctor’s dreadful suggestion, Mrs. Vincent had been aware of the opening of the door down-stairs, and of a sound of voices. She was trembling so that she could scarcely stand, principally, no doubt, on account of this strange demand which he made upon her strength, but with a nervous expectation besides which she could not explain even to herself. But when, out of that confused commotion below, there rose faint but audible the sound of a voice calling “Susan! Susan!” the two anxious people started apart, and turned a wondering momentary gaze upon each other, involuntarily asking what was that? what did it mean? Then the doctor rushed to the door, where the widow followed him as well as her trembling limbs would permit. She saw him dash down-stairs, and herself stood grasping the railing, waiting for what was about to happen, with her heart so beating and fluttering in her breast that she could scarcely breathe for it. She could make nothing of the rapid interrogation that went on downstairs. She heard the voice of the doctor in hasty questions, and the slow, agitated, somewhat confused utterance of a strange voice, which appeared to answer him; and once or twice through these sounds came the strange cry, “Susan! Susan!” which went to the widow’s heart. Who could this be that called upon Susan with so pathetic a repetition? It seemed a very long interval to Mrs. Vincent before the doctor reappeared, and yet so short was the time, that the door by which the new-comers, whoever they were, had entered, was still open, admitting some strange familiar sounds from the street into the bewildering maze of wonder and expectation. Mrs. Vincent held fast by the rails to support herself, when she saw the doctor returning up the stair, leading by the hand a girl whom he grasped fast, and carried along with him by a kind of gentle but strong compulsion. It was she who was calling Susan, gazing round her with large dilated blue eyes, looking everywhere for something she had not yet found. A beautiful girl—more beautiful than anything mortal to the widow’s surprised and wondering eyes. Who was she? The face was very young, sadly simple, framed by long curling locks of fair hair, and the broad circle of a large flapping Leghorn hat and blue veil. A bewildered half-recognition came to Mrs. Vincent’s mind as this blue veil waved in her face in the wind from the open door; but excitement and anxiety had deprived her of speech: she could ask no questions. “Here is the physician,” said Dr. Rider, with a kindred excitement in his voice. He went into the room before her, leading the girl, behind whom there followed slowly a confused and disturbed woman, whose face Mrs. Vincent felt she had seen before. The mother, half jealous in her wonder, pressed in after the doctor to guard her Susan even from experiments of healing. “Doctor, doctor, who is it?” she said. But Dr. Rider held up his hand imperatively to silence her. The room was imperfectly lighted with candles burning dimly, and a faint glow of firelight. “Susan!” cried the eager child’s voice, with a weary echo of longing and disappointment. “Susan!—take me to Susan; she is not here.” Then Dr. Rider led her round to the bedside, closely followed by the widow, and, lifting a candle, threw its light fully upon the stranger. “Is it Susan?” said the girl. “Will she not speak to me?—is she dead? Susan, oh Susan, Susan!” It was an outcry of childish impatience and despair, rising louder than any voice had risen in that room for many a day. Then she burst forth into tears and sobs. “Susan!—she will not speak to me, she will not look at me!” cried the stranger, drawing her arm out of the doctor’s hold, and clasping her hands together. There was a slight movement in the bed; not the restless tossing with which her nurse was familiar, but a trembling shiver came over that dying frame. The sound had reached to the dull ears of the patient. She lifted her heavy eyelids, and looked round with half-awakened eyes. “Call her again, again!” said the doctor, in an intense whisper, which seemed to thrill through the room. The girl, who was engaged with a much more engrossing interest of her own, took no notice of the doctor. She knew nothing about Susan’s danger—she was bent on gaining succour for herself. “Susan! tell her to look at me—at me! Susan! I care for nobody but you!” said the lovely helpless creature, with strange half-articulate cries, pressing closer to the bed. “You are to take care of me.” Mrs. Vincent pressed forward with pangs of anxiety, of terror, of hope, and of a mother’s tender jealousy through all, as these strange entreaties filled the room. She too cried aloud, as she perceived the awakening in that pallid face, the faint movement as if to raise herself up, which indicated a conscious effort on the part of Susan. The clouds were breaking on that obscured and hopeless firmament. The light, which trembled in the doctor’s hand, caught a gleam of understanding and life in Susan’s eyes, as her mother flew to raise her up, obeying the suggestion of that unhoped-for movement. “Susan! you said you would take care of me!” cried the young stranger, throwing herself upon the bedside and grasping at the weak arm which once had protected her. The touch of her hands awoke the slumbering soul. Slowly the light grew in Susan’s eyes. She who had not moved for days except in the restless tossings of languor, lifted those white feeble arms to put them round the appealing child. Then Susan struggled up, faint, yet inspired, unconscious of her mother’s help that enabled her to do so, and confronted the strange people in her room, whom she had seen for weeks past, but did not know, with living eyes. “Nobody shall touch her—we will protect each other,” said the voice that had grown strange even to her mother’s ears. Mrs. Vincent could hardly be restrained from breaking in with a thousand caresses and outcries of joy and thankfulness. But Dr. Rider quieted the poor mother with a touch of his hand. “Let them alone,” he said, with that authority which no one in a sick-room can resist. Mrs. Vincent kept back with unspeakable pangs in her heart, and watched the waking up of that paralysed life which, alike in its loss and its recovery, had been swept apart from her into another world. Without any help from her mother, without even recognising her mother or distinguishing her from the strangers round, Susan’s soul awoke. She raised herself more and more among those pillows where a little while ago she lay so passively—she opened her eyes fully and looked round upon the man by her bedside, and the other indistinct figures in the room, with a look of resistance and conscious strength. “We will protect each other,” said Susan, slowly, “nobody shall harm her—we will keep each other safe.” Then, after another interval, other instincts awoke in the reviving soul. She cast a wistful look from one to another, always drawing her faint white arm round the girl who clung to her and found security in her clasp. “Hush, hush! there are women here,” she said in a whisper, and with a tone of strange confusion, light breaking through the darkness. Then there followed a long pause. Dr. Rider stood by the bedside holding up his candle, attracting the wandering wistful glances of his patient, who ceased to look at him with defiance as her eyes again and again returned to the face, of which, often as it had bent over her, she had no knowledge. All over the unknown room wandered those strange looks, interrogating everything with a wistfulness beyond words. What was this strange unfamiliar world into which, after her trance of suffering, Susan had awakened? She did not know where she was, nor who the people were who surrounded her. But the recollection of deadly peril was not more distinct upon her confused mind than was the sentiment of safety, of love, and watchfulness which somehow abode in this strange dim room, in the little undecipherable circle of faces which surrounded her bed. “Hush!” said Susan again, holding the stranger close. “Here are women—women! nobody will harm us;” then, with a sudden flush over all her face and cry of joy as the doctor suddenly threw the light full upon Mrs. Vincent, who was bending over her, her mind struggled into possession of itself,—“Here is my mother! she has come to take us home!”
Mrs. Vincent remembered nothing more; she did not faint, for her child wanted her—she sat all the night through on the bed, with Susan leaning against her shoulder, clinging to her, holding her fast—starting again and again to make sure that all was safe, and that it was, indeed, her mother’s arms that held her. Her soul was recalled out of that trance of death. They laid the beautiful child upon the sofa in her young guardian’s sight, to keep up that happy influence; and when the night was about half spent, the widow, throbbing all over her wearied frame with exhaustion, pain, and joy, perceived that her Susan had fallen deep and sweet asleep, clasping close, as if never again to lose hold of them, her mother’s tender hands.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE after-events of the evening naturally lessened, in the minister’s family at least, the all-absorbing interest of the meeting at Salem. Even Mr. Vincent’s landlady, in her wondering narrative of the scene in the sick-room—which, all Mrs. Vincent’s usual decorums being thrust aside by that unexpected occurrence, she had witnessed—forgot the other public event which was of equally great importance. The house was in a state of agitation as great as on Susan’s return; and when the exulting doctor, whose experiment had been so rarely successful, turned all supernumerary persons out of the sick-room, it fell to Vincent’s part to take charge of the perplexed governess, Miss Smith, who stood outside, anxious to offer explanations, a fatigued and harassed, but perfectly virtuous and exemplary woman. Vincent, who had not realised his sister’s extreme peril, and who was rather disconcerted by this fresh invasion of his house, opened the door of his sitting-room for her with more annoyance than hospitality. His own affairs were urgent in his mind. He could not keep his thoughts from dwelling upon Salem and what had occurred there, though no one else thought of it. Had he known the danger in which his sister lay, his heart might have rejected every secondary matter. But the minister did not know that Susan had been sinking into the last apathy when this sudden arrival saved her. He gave Miss Smith the easy-chair by the fire, and listened with an appearance of attention, but with little real understanding, to her lengthy and perplexed story. She was all in a flutter, the good governess said: everything was so mysterious and out of the way, she did not know what to think. Little Alice’s mamma, Miss Russell that was, Mrs. Mildmay she meant, had brought the child back to her after that dreadful business at Dover. What was the rights of that business, could Mr. Vincent tell her? Colonel Mildmay was getting better, she knew, and it was not a murder; and she was heartbroken when she heard the trouble poor dear Miss Vincent had got into about it. Well, Alice’s mamma brought back the child, and they started with her at once to France. They went up beyond Lyons to the hills, an out-of-the-way little place, but Mrs. Mildmay was always so nervous. “And then she left us, Mr. Vincent,” said the afflicted governess, as the minister, in grievous impatience, kept pacing up and down the room thus occupied and taken possession of—“left us without a soul to speak to or a church within reach; and if there is one thing I have more horror of than another for its effect upon the youthful mind, it is Popery, which is so seductive to the imagination. Alice did not take to her mamma, Mr. Vincent. It was natural enough, but it was hard upon Mrs. Mildmay: she never had a good way with children; and from the moment we started till now, it has been impossible to get your sister out of the child’s mind. She took a fancy to her the moment she saw her. Girls of that age, if you will not think it strange of me to say so, very often fall in love with a girl older than themselves—quite fall in love, though it is a strange thing to say. Alice would not rest—she gave me no peace. I wrote to say so, but I think Mrs. Mildmay could not have got my letter. The child would have run away by herself if I had not brought her. Besides,” said Miss Smith, apologetically, “the doctors have assured me that, if she ever became much interested in any one, or attached to anybody in particular, she was not to be crossed. It was the best chance for her mind, the doctors said. What could I do? What do you think I could do, Mr. Vincent? I brought her home, for I could not help myself—otherwise she would have run away. She has a very strong will, though she looks so gentle. I hope you will help me to explain the circumstances to Mrs. Mildmay, and how it was I came back without her authority. Don’t you think they ought to call in the friends on both sides and come to some arrangement, Mr. Vincent?” said the excellent woman, anxiously. “I know she trusts you very much, and it was she herself who gave me your address.”
To this speech Vincent listened with an impatience and restlessness which he found it impossible to conceal. He paced about the darker end of his room, on the other side of that table, where the lamp shone vacantly upon his open desk and scattered papers, answering now and then with a mono-syllable of reluctant courtesy, irritated and disturbed beyond expression by the perfectly serious and proper figure seated by the fire. Somebody might come from that assembly which had met to discuss him, and he could not be alone to receive them. In the annoyance of the moment the minister almost chafed at his sister and her concerns. His life was invaded by these women, with their mysteries and agonies. He listened to the steps outside, thinking every moment to hear the steady tramp of the deputation from Salem, or at least Tozer, whom it would have been balm to his mind, in the height of the good man’s triumph, to cut short and annihilate. But how do that, or anything else, with this woman seated by his fire explaining her unintelligible affairs? Such was Vincent’s state of mind while his mother, in an agony of joy, was hearing from Susan’s lips, for the first time, broken explanations of those few days of her life which outbalanced in terrible importance all its preceding years. The minister did not know that his sister’s very existence, as well as her reason, hung upon that unhoped-for opening of her mouth and her heart.
Matters were not much mended when Dr. Rider came in, beaming and radiant, full of congratulations. Susan was saved. It was the most curious psychological puzzle, the doctor said; all her life had got concentrated into the few days between her departure from Lonsdale and her arrival at Carlingford. Neither her old existence, nor the objects that surrounded her at the moment, had any significance for Susan; only something that belonged to that wonderful interval in which she had been driven desperate, could win back consciousness to her mind. It was the most singular case he had ever met with; but he knew this was the only way of treating it, and so it had proved. He recognised the girl with the blue veil the moment he saw her—he knew it could be no other. Who was she? where had she sprung from at that critical moment? where had she been? what was to be done with her? Dr. Rider poured forth his questions like a stream. He was full of professional triumph, not to say natural satisfaction. He could not understand how his patient’s brother, at that wonderful crisis, could have a mind preoccupied or engaged with other things. The doctor turned with lively sympathy and curiosity from the anxious Nonconformist to Miss Smith, who was but too willing to begin all her explanations over again. Dr. Rider, accustomed to hear many personal narratives, collected this story a great deal more clearly than Vincent, who was so much more interested in it, had, with all his opportunities, been able to do. How long the poor minister might have suffered under this conversation, it is impossible to tell. But Mrs. Vincent, in all the agitation of her daughter’s deliverance, could not forget the griefs of others. She sent a little message to her son, begging that he would send word of this arrival to “the poor lady.” “To let her know—but she must not come here to-night,” was the widow’s message, who was just then having the room darkened, and everything arranged for the night, if perhaps her child might sleep. This message delivered the minister; it recalled Miss Smith to her duty. She it was who must go and explain everything to her patroness. Dr. Rider, whose much-excited wonder was still further stimulated by hearing that the child’s mother was at Lady Western’s, that she was Mrs. Mildmay, and that the Nonconformist was in her confidence, cheerfully undertook to carry the governess in his drag to Grange Lane, not without hopes of further information; and it was now getting late. Miss Smith made Vincent a tremulous curtsy, and held out her hand to him to say good-night. “The doctor will perhaps explain to Mrs. Mildmay why I have left little Alice,” said the troubled woman. “I never left her before since she was intrusted to me—never but when her papa stole her away; and you are a minister, Mr. Vincent, and oh, I hope I am doing quite right, and as Alice’s mamma will approve! But if she disapproves I must come back and——”
“They must not be disturbed to-night,” said Dr. Rider, promptly; “I will see Mrs. Mildmay.” He was not reluctant to see Mrs. Mildmay. The doctor, though he was not a gossip, was not inaccessible to the pleasure of knowing more than anybody else of the complications of this strange business, which still afforded matter of talk to Carlingford. He hurried her away while still the good governess was all in a flutter, and for the first time the minister was left alone. It was with a troubled mind that the young man resumed his seat at his desk. He began to get utterly weary of this business, and all about it. If he could only have swept away in a whirlwind, with his mother and sister, where the name of Mildmay had never been heard of, and where he could for ever get rid of that haunting woman with her gleaming eyes, who had pursued even his gentle mother to the door! but this new complication seemed to involve him deeper than ever in those strange bonds. It was with a certain disgust that the minister thought it all over as he sat leaning his head on his hands. His way was dark before him, yet it must speedily be decided. Everything was at a crisis in his excited mind and troubled life—even that strange lovely child’s face, which had roused Susan from her apathy, had its share in the excitement of her brother’s thoughts; for it was but another version, with differences, of the face of that other Alice, who all unwittingly had procured for Vincent the sweetest and the hardest hours he had spent in Carlingford. Were they all to pass like a dream—her smiles, her sweet looks, her kind words, even that magical touch upon his arm, which had once charmed him out of all his troubles? A groan came out of the young man’s heart, not loud, but deep, as that thought moved him. The very despair of this love-dream had been more exquisite than any pleasure of his life. Was it all to pass away and be no longer? Life and thought, the actual and the visionary, had both come to a climax, and seemed to stand still, waiting the decision which must be come to that night.
From these musings the entrance of Tozer roused the minister. The excellent butterman came in all flushed and glowing from his success. To him, the meeting, which already the Nonconformist had half lost sight of under the superstructure of subsequent events, had newly concluded, and was the one occurrence of the time. The cheers which had hailed him master of the field were still ringing in Tozer’s ears. “I don’t deny as I am intoxicated-like,” said the excellent deacon; “them cheers was enough to carry any man off his legs, sir, if you’ll believe me. We’ve scattered the enemy, that’s what we’ve been and done, Mr. Vincent. There ain’t one of them as will dare show face in Salem. We was unanimous, sir—unanimous, that’s what we was! I never see such a triumph in our connection. Hurrah! If it warn’t Miss as is ill, I could give it you all over again, cheers and all.”
“I am glad you were pleased,” said Vincent, with an effort; “but I will not ask you for such a report of the proceedings.”
“Pleased! I’ll tell you one thing as I was sorry for, sir,” said Tozer, somewhat subdued in his exultation by the pastor’s calmness—“I did it for the best; but seeing as things have turned out so well, I am as sorry as I can be—and that is, that you wasn’t there. It was from expecting some unpleasantness as I asked you not to come; but things turning out as they did, it would have done your heart good to see ’em, Mr. Vincent. Salem folks has a deal of sense when you put things before them effective. And then you’d only have had to say three words to them on the spur of the moment, and all was settled and done with, and everything put straight; which would have let them settle down steady, sir, at once, and not kept no excitement, as it were, hanging about.”