Маргарет Олифант
Salem Chapel. Volume 2/2
The policeman at the door touched Vincent on the sleeve, just as he turned from the dreadful spectacle before him. “Nobody is allowed in here but for a good reason,” said this man, gazing suspiciously at the stranger; “unless you knows something about it, or have come to identify the poor gentleman, or are of some use somehow, I can’t let you stay here.”
“I do not wish to stay here,” said Vincent, turning away with a shudder. “I want to see the ladies who were with him. Yes, I know who he is – but I am not a friend of his; I have nothing to do with the matter. Where are the ladies who were with him? Miss Vincent,” said the minister with a pang, “and – and Miss Mildmay. I have come to take them away.”
“The ladies as were with him? Oh, it’s them as you’re awanting; perhaps you’ll stop a minute and talk to the inspector,” said the policeman. “The ladies as were with him? Maybe you can tell the inspector something as will help justice? You didn’t know the reason as brought out two young women a-travelling with a gen’leman, did you? They’ll want all the friends they can collect afore all’s done. You come this way with me.”
It was a relief to get out of sight of that which horrified yet fascinated his eyes. Vincent followed the man into another room without observing the evident suspicion with which he was regarded. “Where are they?” he asked again. “I have a cab below. This is not a place for women. I have come to take them away. Where are the people of the house? What do you mean by keeping your hand on me? I want Miss Vincent. Do you hear me? I have nothing to do with Colonel Mildmay. He has plenty of friends to avenge him. I want my sister. Where is she? Call the people of the house.”
Vincent threw off the policeman’s hand from his arm, and, looking for a bell, rang violently. He was too much horror-stricken, and too secure of finding Susan, weeping and helpless in some corner, to show any of the passionate eagerness with which he had started on his search. Little doubt she was there, poor lost soul. He shrank from meeting with her, now that the meeting was so near; and his thoughts went after that other desperate wretched woman, flying – who could tell where? – in despair and darkness. The house was in utter disorder, as was natural; none of its humble occupants being capable, at the present exciting moment, of attending to their usual duties. Vincent rang the bell again, till it pealed and echoed through the place. Then he bethought himself, with a natural shudder, of the death-chamber close by. He turned to the man by his side, with an instinctive involuntary curiosity. “Is any one suspected?” said the minister, feeling his face grow pale with a dreadful consciousness of the secret which he shared. But before he could hear the answer, his second summons had brought up the terrified mistress of the house, attended half way up the stair by a throng of curious women. He went hurriedly to meet her at the door.
“Where are the ladies?” said the minister. “I have just heard that my sister was brought here last night. Tell her I am here. Take me to her. Don’t be alarmed. You know what I mean? The two ladies – young ladies who came here with Colonel Mildmay last night – where are they? Good heavens! do you not understand what I mean?”
“The young ladies, sir?” faltered the landlady, gasping and looking at the man who still kept by Vincent’s side. “Oh, Lord bless us! The young ladies – ”
“Make haste and let them know I am here,” said Vincent, gradually growing more and more anxious. “I will undertake to produce them if they are wanted as witnesses. Where are they? – where is my sister? I tell you she is my sister. I have come for her. Tell Miss Vincent. Surely I am speaking plain English,” said the young man, with a flush of sudden dread. “The elder one, Miss Vincent – you understand me? Let her know that I am here.”
“His sister! Oh, Lord bless us; and he don’t know no more than the unborn,” cried the woman of the house. “Oh, Lord! p’liceman, can’t you tell the poor gentleman? His sister! oh, that’s worse than ever, that is. Some poor young thing as has been beguiled and led astray. Lord bless us! don’t look at me o’ that way. I ain’t to blame. Oh, gracious me, that I should have to tell the gentleman, and you standing there! Oh, sir, it’s her as has done it. She’s gone away from here afore break of day. I don’t blame her; oh, I don’t blame her; don’t look o’ that dreadful way at me. He’s drove her to it with bad usage. She’ll have to suffer for it; but I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her if it was my last word in life.”
Vincent felt his tongue cleave to his mouth. He was stunned; he did not know what he said – what he was hearing. “Blame her? whom? for what?” he said, with a mechanical effort. He seemed to himself to be suddenly engulfed in some horrible cloud, but he did not know what it meant.
“Oh, Lord! don’t look o’ that dreadful way at me; she’s gone off from here as soon as she done it,” cried the woman. “She had that much sense left, poor soul. He’s drove her mad; he’s drove her to it. My man says it can’t be brought in no worse than manslaughter – ”
“You don’t understand me,” Vincent broke in; “you are talking of the criminal. Who are you talking of? – but it does not matter. I want Miss Vincent. Do you hear me? – the young lady whom he brought here last night. Where is my sister? Gone away before daybreak! You mean the criminal, but I want my sister. Susan! take me to where she is. She had nothing to do with it. I will give you anything – pay you anything, only take me to where she is.”
He moved towards the door as he spoke, half believing that, if he could but hold out and refuse to credit this horror, Susan might still be found. “Lord bless us! the poor young gentleman’s gone out of his senses,” cried the landlady. “Let him go through all the house if that’s what he wants. There ain’t nothing to conceal in my house. I’ll take you to the room as they were in – she and the other one. This way, sir. They hadn’t nothing with them but two little bags, so there wasn’t much to leave; but such as it is, being her night-things, is there. She wasn’t thinking of bags, nor any of her little comforts, when she went away. Here, sir; walk in here.”
The woman took him to a room up-stairs, where Vincent followed her mechanically. The room had evidently been occupied a very short time before. Upon a chair, open, with the contents only half thrust in, was a travelling-bag, which the minister recognised at once – a piece of family property dreadful to see in such a place. Susan had been putting her things away with the orderly instinct of her mother’s daughter when this sudden shock of terror came upon her. “Do you mean to tell me that it is she who has gone away,” said Vincent, with a look of incredulous wonder and appeal – “she – Susan Vincent, my sister? Take time to think. It was not she – somebody else. Tell me where she is – ”
“Oh, sir, don’t say anything as may come against her,” cried the landlady. “It’s nobody but her, poor soul, poor soul. If it was possible to think as it could be another, I would – but there was nobody else to do it. As soon as we heard the shot and the groan the master got up. He met her on the stair, sir, if you’ll believe me, like a woman as was walking in her sleep. He was that struck he daren’t say a word to her. He let her pass by him and go out at the door – and when he went into the gentleman’s room and found him there a-dying, she was gone clean off, and couldn’t be heard of. Folks say as my husband should have stopped her, but it wasn’t none of his business. Oh, sir, don’t say nothing as’ll put them on her track! There’s one man gone off after her already – oh, it’s dreadful! – if you’ll be advised by me, you’ll slip out the back way, and don’t come across that policeman again. If she did kill him,” cried the weeping landlady, “it was to save herself, poor dear. I’ll let you out the back way, if you’ll be guided by me.”
The horror of this accusation had come home to Vincent’s mind at last. He saw, as if by a sudden flash of dreadful enlightenment, not guilt indeed, or its awful punishment, but open shame – the disgrace of publicity – the horrible suspicions which were of themselves more than enough to kill the unhappy girl. He made a great effort to speak, but could not for the moment. He thrust in the white soft garments which were hanging out of it, into that familiar bag, which somehow gave him a pang more acute than all the terrible news he was hearing. He had travelled with it himself on innocent boyish journeys, had seen it in his mother’s innocent hands – and now to find it in this shuddering atmosphere of crime and mystery! He too shuddered as he roused himself to speak. “Hush – hush,” said Vincent, “you mistake, my sister has nothing to do with it; I – I can prove that – easily,” said the minister, getting the words out with difficulty. “Tell me how it all happened – when they came here, what passed; for instance – ” He paused, and his eye caught another evidence of the reality of his horrible position. It was the blue veil which he had followed and described, and looked for through all these weary hours. He took it up in his hand, crushing it together with an almost ungovernable impulse of rage, from where it had been thrown down on the shabby carpet. “For instance,” said Susan’s brother, restraining himself, “where is the girl who wore this? You said Miss Vincent went away alone – where was the other? was she left behind – is she here?”
The policeman had followed them up into the room in natural curiosity and suspicion. The landlady’s husband had sworn that Susan left the house by herself. Then, where was the girl? The fugitive had been tracked to the railway, the policeman said; but she was alone. Nobody had thought before of her helpless companion. The inspector arrived while they were going over the house trying if it were possible to find any traces of this forlorn creature. Vincent was much too profoundly concerned himself to keep silence about the mysterious movements of the woman whom he had seen on his way to Dover – whom he had seen that very morning in the darkness – whom he knew to be the bitterest enemy of the murdered man. It was only when he described her – when he tried to collect all the information he had ever had about her for the guidance of justice – that he saw how little he knew of her in reality. His very description was tinged with a touch of fancy; and in this frightful emergency he perceived, for the first time, how much his imagination had supplied of the interest he felt in this woman. When he had done all it was possible to do to set the pursuer on her track, and gathered all he could of the supposed proofs against Susan, he left the place where he could do nothing further. He had to describe himself fully – to prove his identity by a reference to the Dissenting minister of the place, and explain whence he had come and whither he was going, before the officers in charge of the house, although conscious that they had no grounds for detaining him, would let him go. But he was permitted to leave at last. While he waited for the next train to Carlingford, he questioned the cabman, who could give but a very faint and indistinct description of the lady whom he had seen at the pier-gates, whose appearance had stopped Colonel Mildmay in the prosecution of his journey. She was standing under a lamp, the man said: the gentleman might see her, but he didn’t think as she could see him; but dim as the vision was, this was another little link in the chain of evidence. If it did but vindicate Susan – save her, not from the penalty, but from the very shadow and suspicion of such a horror! It was this which filled the minister’s mind with every sort of frightful apprehension. To have Susan’s name exposed to such a horrible publicity – to have such a scene, such a crime anyhow connected with his sister – the idea shook Vincent’s mind utterly, and almost disabled him from thought at all. And where was she, poor horror-stricken fugitive? He scarcely dared hope that she had gone to her mother. Sudden death, madness, any misery, seemed possible to have overtaken the unhappy girl thus suddenly reft out of the peacefulness of her youth into circumstances so horrible. When he entered Carlingford, late at night, it was with insupportable pangs of suspense and alarm that he looked into the faces he met on the lighted streets. Were they looking at him already with a consciousness that some frightful shadow enveloped him? Tozer’s shop was already shut – earlier than usual, surely – and two or three people stood talking at the open door, clearly visible against the gaslight, which still burned bright within. Farther up, opposite his own house, two or three passengers had stopped to look up at the lighted windows. When Vincent thrust aside a lad who happened to be in his way, asking, with uncontrollable irritation, what he wanted there, the door opened suddenly at the sound of his voice. All was excited and confused within – common life, with its quiet summonses and answers, was over there. Wild confusion, agitation, reproach, surrounded the unfortunate minister. His landlady came forward to meet him, to bewail her own misfortune, and upbraid him with the wrong he had done her. “I took in the pastor for a lodger, because he was sure to be steady and respectable, and this is what he has brought to me!” cried the hysterical woman. “What is the meaning of all this?” cried Vincent, looking round him with restrained fury, but he did not wait for an answer. He went up to his rooms to know the worst. As he rushed breathless up-stairs, loud outcries of delirium reached him. In his horror and anguish he could not recognise the voice – was it his mother who had given way under the terrible burden? He dashed open the door of the sitting-room in which he had spent so many quiet hours – neither mother nor sister were there; instead of them a rough-featured man, in a blue travelling-coat, and Tozer, flushed and argumentative, standing by the table. Vincent had not time to ask what the controversy was that was going on between the two. The butterman grasped his hand with an almost violent pressure, and took the stranger’s arm. “Beg your pardon for being in your room, Mr. Vincent, but me and this gentleman has a little business. I’ll be back presently and explain,” said the good deacon, with a compassionate look at the young man, whose weary eyes sought with instinctive suspicion that unknown face. “I’m your friend, Mr. Vincent – I always was; I’m not one as will desert a friend in trouble,” said Tozer, with another shake of his hand, lowering his voice. Then he disappeared with his strange companion. The minister was alone with those cries, with this agitation. He threw himself down in momentary despair. The worst, it appeared, had happened – the horror had travelled before him. He gave up everything in the anguish of that moment. There seemed to be no use for any further struggle. To this sensitive, spotless, inexperienced household, suspicion was worse than death.
CHAPTER V
WHEN Vincent came to himself, and began to see clearly the true horrors of his position, his mind, driven to its last stronghold, rallied convulsively to meet the worst. It was Susan who was raving close by; but her brother, in the sickening despair of his heart, had not the courage to go into that agitated sick-room. He sat waiting for Tozer’s return with a sense of helplessness, a sense of irritation, against which he had no strength to contend. In that bitter moment he gave up everything, and felt himself no longer capable of striving against his fate. He felt in his heart that all Carlingford must already be discussing the calamity that had come upon him, and that his innocent honourable name was already sullied by the breath of the crowd; and, with a strange mixture of intolerance and eagerness, he waited the return of the man who had first, as it appeared, thrust himself into the secret – a man whom the minister must not affront, must not defy, on peril of all he had in the world. These few silent moments were more terrible to Vincent than any that had gone before them. Was it any good holding out, attempting to keep a brave face to the world, struggling against this crushing blow? – or would it not be easiest to give in, to drop the useless arms, to fly from the inevitable downfall? Some corner of the earth there surely remained where he could hide his head and find a shelter for the two poor women who were greater sufferers than he. It was with such feelings that he awaited the return of Tozer – feelings aggravated by the consciousness that somehow the butterman was engaged in his service at this very moment, and by a shadowy and unexpressed suspicion in his mind as to the character of the stranger whom Tozer had taken away. The excellent deacon returned at last with looks of conscious importance. He was very sorry and anxious, but he could not help looking confidential, and standing a little higher upon the ground of this mystery, which nobody shared but himself. Once more he shook hands with Vincent, sympathetically, and with a grasp full of meaning.
“The thing for us to do is to keep it quiet – to keep it quiet, sir,” said Tozer, lowering his voice as he spoke. “Nothing must be said about it – no more nor can be helped, Mr. Vincent. As far as it has gone, there’s nobody as has heard but me. If it could be kept private from the Salem folks,” continued the butterman, taking a seat at the table, and looking cautiously round him, as if to make sure that no one was within hearing, “it would be for the best. Them women do make such a talk about everything. Not to tell a falsehood, sir, as I wouldn’t, not to save my own, if so be as my own could be in such a position – we’ll say as your sister’s took bad, sir, that’s what we’ll say. And no lie neither – hear to her, poor soul! – But, Mr. Vincent,” said Tozer, drawing closer, and confiding his doubt in a whisper, “what she says is best not to be listened to, if you’ll take my advice. It ain’t to be built upon what a poor creature says in a fever, but them sort of words and screechings don’t come out of nothing but a troubled mind. She was aggravated awful – so the man tells me.”
“Who was the man?” asked Vincent, hurriedly.
“The man? oh! – which man was you meaning, sir?” asked Tozer, with a little fright, recurring to his more generous intention of keeping this intruder altogether from the knowledge of the minister; “nobody in particular, Mr. Vincent – nobody as is worth mentioning. One as was sent to inquire – that’s all. I’ve cleared him away out of the road,” said the butterman, not without some natural complacency: “there ain’t no matter about him. Don’t ask me no more, Mr. Vincent, for it’s losing time as is precious. If there’s anything as can be done, it’s best to do it directly. I’d speak to John Brown as is the cleverest attorney in Carlingford, sir, if I was you. She’s young, and, as I was saying, she was aggravated awful. She might be got off.”
“Hush!” said Vincent, who had to put a desperate curb upon himself, lest the restrained rage with which he heard this implication of guilt should burst out; “you think there is something in this horrible business – that my sister has something to do with it. It is all a frightful delusion – an infernal – ”
“Mr. Vincent, sir, you mustn’t swear. I’m as sorry for you as a man can be; but you’re a minister, and you mustn’t give way,” said Tozer. “If there ain’t nothing in it, so much the better; but I’m told as the evidence is clean again’ her. Well, I won’t say no more; it’s no pleasure to me to think of a young creature, and a minister’s daughter, with a mother like what she’s got, going any ways astray – far the contrary, Mr. Vincent: your own father, if he was living, couldn’t be more sorry than me. But my advice is, keep quiet, and don’t let anything get out no more nor can be helped. I don’t mean to say as it can be altogether kep’ quiet – that ain’t in the nature of things; nor I don’t mean to make you suppose as all is likely to go smooth, and no fault found. There’s pretty sure to be some unpleasantness, one way or another; and the only thing as I can see is just to put up with it, and stand your ground, and do your duty all the same. And I for one will stand by you, sir,” said Tozer, rising to his feet with a little glow of conscious generosity and valour, and shaking the hand of the poor young minister with cordial kindness – “I’ll stand by you, sir, for one, whatever happens; and we’ll tide it out, Mr. Vincent, that’s what we’ll do, sir, if you can but hold on.”
“Thank you,” said poor Vincent, moved to the heart – “thank you. I dare not think how it is all to end, but thank you all the same; I shall not forget what you say.”
“And tell your mother,” continued Tozer, swelling to a little triumph in his own magnanimity – “tell your mother as I said so; tell her as I’ll stand by you through thick and thin; and we’ll pull through, we’ll pull through!” said the butterman, slowly disappearing, with a face radiant with conscious bounty and patronage, through the open door.
Vincent had followed him with an instinct of civility and gratitude. Just as Tozer withdrew, a fresh burst of outcry came from the sick-room, ringing through the excited house. The deacon turned round half-way down the stair, held up his hands, listened, and made a movement of wondering pity towards the closed door which hid Susan, but did not keep in her cries. The wretched minister drew back from that compassionate gesture as if some one had struck him a blow. He went back and threw himself down on the sofa, and covered his face with his hands. The pity and the patronage were the last drop of humiliation in his bitter cup. Hot tears came to his eyes; it seemed to him more than flesh and blood could bear.
Some time elapsed, however, before Vincent had the courage to meet his mother. When those dreadful outcries sank into exhaustion, and all for the moment was quiet in the sick-room, he sent to tell her he had arrived, and went to the dreadful door which she kept closed so jealously. He was afraid to meet her eye when she came to him, and noiselessly drew him within. Judging by himself, he had not ventured to think what his mother’s horror and despair would be. But Mrs. Vincent put her arms round her son with an exclamation of thanksgiving. “Oh, Arthur! thank God, you are come. Now I shall be able to bear it,” cried his mother. She cried a little upon his breast, and then wiped her eyes and looked up at him with quivering lips. “Oh, Arthur, what my poor darling must have come through!” said Mrs. Vincent, with a wistful appeal to him in her tender eyes. She said nothing of the darker horror. It lay upon her soul a frightful, inarticulate shadow; but in the mean time she could only think of Susan and her fever – that fever which afforded a kind of comfort to the mother – a proof that her child had not lost her innocence lightly, but that the shock had been to Susan a horrible convulsion, shaking earth and heaven. The mother and son went together to the bedside to look at the unhappy cause of all their sorrows – she clinging with her tender hand to his arm, wistful now, and afraid in the depths of her heart lest Arthur, who was only a man, might be hard upon Susan in her terrible abasement. It was more than a year since Vincent had seen his sister. Was it Susan? The grandeur of the stricken form, the features sublimed and elevated, the majestic proportions into which this awful crisis of fate had developed the fair-haired girl of Lonsdale, struck her brother with unspeakable awe and pity. Pity and awe: but yet another feeling mingled in the wonder with which he gazed upon her. A thrill of terror came over him. That frightful, tropical blaze of passion, anguish, and woe which had produced this sudden development, had it developed no unknown qualities in Susan’s heart? As she lay there in the majesty of unconsciousness, she resembled more a woman who could avenge herself, than a soft girl, the sudden victim of a bad man. Vincent turned away from the bed with an involuntary shudder. He would not, could not, look at her again: he left his mother to her unceasing vigil, and himself went to his own room, to try if rest were possible. Rest was not easy in such a terrible complication of affairs; but weariness is omnipotent with youth. He did sleep by snatches, in utter fatigue and exhaustion – slept long enough to secure for himself the unspeakable torture of waking to the renewed horror of a new day.
