“I am not thinking of Salem,” said the minister; “I have many other things to distract me; for heaven’s sake, if you have any pity, leave me alone to-day.”
“But you’ll give in to make it a tea-meetin’?” said the anxious butterman, pausing at his own door.
Tozer did not make out the minister’s reply. It is difficult to distinguish between a nod and a shake of the head, under some circumstances—and Vincent did not pause to give an articulate answer, but left his champion to his own devices. It seemed to Vincent to be a long time since Fordham left his house—and he was possessed with a fever of impatience to see for himself what was being transacted down yonder in the sunshine, where the spire of St. Roque’s appeared in the distance through the ruddy morning haze. The bells had ceased, and all was quiet enough in Grange Lane. Quite quiet—a few ordinary passengers in the tranquil road, nursemaids and children—and the calm green doors closing in the concealed houses, as if no passion or agitation could penetrate them. The door of Lady Western’s garden was ajar. The minister crossed over and looked in with a wistful, despairing hope of seeing something that would contradict his conclusion. The house was basking in the spring sunshine—the door open, some of the windows open, eager servants hovering about, an air of expectation over all. With eyes full of memories, the minister looked in at the half-open door, which one time and another had been to him the gate of paradise. Within, where the red geraniums and verbenas had once brightened all the borders, were pale crocuses and flowers of early spring—the limes were beginning to bud, the daisies to grow among the grass. The winter was over in that sheltered and sunny place; Nature herself stood sweet within the protecting walls, and gathered all the tenderest sweets of spring to greet the bride in the new beginning of her life. It was but a glance, but the spectator, in the bitterness of his heart, did not lose a single tint or line; and just then the joy-bells burst out once more from St. Roque’s. Poor Vincent drew back from the door as the sudden sound stung him to the heart. Nothing had any pity for him—all the world, and every voice and breath therein, sided with the others in their joy. He went on blindly, without thinking where he was going, with a kind of dull, stubborn determination in his heart, not to turn back in his wretchedness even from the sight of the happy procession which he knew must be advancing to meet him. A pang more or less, what did it matter? And for the last time he would look on Her who was nothing in the world to him now—who never could have been anything—yet who had somehow shed such streams of light upon the poor minister’s humble path, as no reality in all his life had ever shed before. He paused on the edge of the road as he saw the carriage coming. It was one of those moments when a man’s entire life becomes apparent to him in long perspective of past and future, he himself and all the world standing still between. The bells rang on his heart, with echoes from the wheels and the horses’ feet coming up in superb pride and triumph. Heaven and earth were glad for her in her joy. He, in his great trouble, stood dark in the sunshine and looked on.
It was only a moment, and no more. He would have seen nothing but the white mist of the veil which surrounded her, had not she in her loveliness and kindness perceived him, and bent forward in the carriage with a little motion of her hand calling the attention of her unseen bridegroom to that figure on the way. At sight of that movement, the unhappy young man started with an intolerable pang, and went on heedless where he was going. He could not control the momentary passion. She had never harmed him—never meant to dazzle him with her beauty, or trifle with his love, or break his heart. It was kind as the sunshine, this sweet bridal face leaning out with that momentary glance of recognition. She would have given him her kind hand, her sweet smile as of old, had they met more closely—no remorseful consciousness was in her eyes; but neither the bells, nor the flowers, nor the sunshine, went with such a pang to poor Vincent’s heart as did that look of kindness. It was all unreal then—no foundation at all in it? not enough to call a passing colour to her cheek, or to dim her sweet eyes on her bridal day? He went down the long road in the insensibility of passion—seeing nothing, caring for nothing—stung to the heart. No look of triumph, no female dart of conscious cruelty, could have given the poor minister so bitter a wound. All her treasured looks and smiles—the touch of her hand—her words, of which he had scarcely forgotten one—did they mean nothing after all? nothing but kindness? He had laid his heart at her feet; if she had trodden on it he could have forgiven her; but she only went on smiling, and never saw the treasure in her way. And this was the end. The unfortunate young man could not give way to any outbreak of the passion that consumed him; he could but go on hotly—on past St. Roque’s, where flowers still lay in the porch, and the open doors invited strangers, to the silent country, where the fields lay callow under the touch of spring. Spring! everlasting mockery of human trouble! Here were the hedgerows stirring, the secret grain beginning to throb conscious in the old furrows; but life itself standing still—coming to a sudden end in this heart which filled the young man’s entire frame with pulsations of anguish. All his existence had flowed towards this day, and took its termination here. His love—heaven help him! he had but one heart, and had thrown it away; his work—that too was to come to nothing, and be ended; all his traditions, all his hopes, were they to be buried in one grave? and what was to become after of the posthumous and nameless life?
CHAPTER XXI.
WHEN the minister fully came to himself, it was after a long rapid walk of many miles through the silent fields and hazy country. There the clouds cleared off from him in the quietness. When he began to see clearly he turned back towards Carlingford. Nothing now stood between him and the crisis which henceforward must determine his personal affairs. He turned in the long country road, which he had been pursuing eagerly without knowing what he was doing, and gazed back towards the distant roofs. His heart ached and throbbed with the pangs that were past. He had a consciousness that it stirred within his breast, still smarting and thrilling with that violent access of agony—but the climax was over. The strong pulsations fell into dull beats of indefinite pain. Now for the other world—the neutral-coloured life. Vincent did not very well know which road he had taken, for he had not been thinking of where he was going; but it roused him a little to perceive that his homeward way brought him through Grove Street, and past Siloam Cottage, where Mr. Tufton lived.
Mrs. Tufton was at the window, behind the great geranium, when the minister came in sight. When she saw him she tapped upon the pane and beckoned him to go in. He obeyed the summons, almost without impatience, in the languor of his mind. He went in to find them all by the fire, just as they had been when he came first to Carlingford. The old minister, in his arm-chair, holding out his flabby white hand to his dear young brother; the invalid daughter still knitting, with cold blue eyes, always vigilant and alert, investigating everything. It was a mild day, and Mrs. Tufton herself had shifted her seat to the window, where she had been reading aloud as usual the ‘Carlingford Gazette.’ The motionless warm air of the little parlour, the prints of the brethren on the walls, the attitudes of the living inhabitants, were all unchanged from the time when the young minister of Salem paid his first visit, and chafed at Mr. Tufton’s advice, and heard with a secret shiver the prophecy of Adelaide, that “they would kill him in six months.” He took the same chair, again making a little commotion among the furniture, which the size of the room made it difficult to displace. It was with a bewildering sensation that he sat down in that unchangeable house. Had time really gone on through all these passions and pains, of which he was conscious in his heart? or had it stood still, and were they only dreams? Adelaide Tufton, immovable in her padded chair, with pale blue eyes that searched through everything, had surely never once altered her position, but had knitted away the days with a mystic thread like one of the Fates. Even the geranium did not seem to have gained or shed a single leaf.
“I have just been reading in the ‘Gazette’ the report of last night’s meeting,” said good Mrs. Tufton. “Oh, Mr. Vincent, I was so glad—your dear mother herself, if she had been there, could not have been happier than I was. I hope she has seen the ‘Gazette’ this morning. You young men always like the ‘Times;’ but they never put in anything that is interesting to me in the ‘Times.’ Perhaps, if she has not seen it, you will put the paper in your pocket. Indeed, it made me as happy as if you had been my own son. I always say that is very much how Mr. Tufton and I feel for you.”
“Yes, it went off very well,” said the old minister. “My dear young brother, it all depends on whether you have friends that know how to deal with a flock; nothing can teach you that but experience. I am sorry I dare not go out again to-night—it cost me my night’s rest last night, as Mrs. Tufton will tell you; but that is nothing in consideration of duty. Never think of ease to yourself, my dear young friend, when you can serve a brother; it has always been my rule through life——”
“Mr. Vincent understands all that,” said Adelaide; “that will do, papa—we know. Tell me about Lady Western’s marriage, Mr. Vincent. I daresay you were invited, as she was such a friend of yours. It must have made an awkwardness between you when she turned out to be Colonel Mildmay’s sister; but, to be sure, those things don’t matter among people in high life. It was delightful that she should marry her old love after all, don’t you think? Poor Sir Joseph would have left a different will if he had known. Parted for ten years and coming together again! it is like a story in a book——”