Margaret Oliphant - Salem Chapel. Volume 1/2

“But dear, dear Mr. Tufton!” cried his wife, “bless you, the chapel is twice as full as it was six months ago – and natural too, with a nice young man.”

“My dear!” said the old minister in reproof. “Yes, quite natural – curiosity about a stranger; but my young brother must not be elated; nor discouraged when they drop off. A young pastor’s start in life is attended by many trials. There is always a little excitement at first, and an appearance of seats letting and the ladies very polite to you. Take it easily, my dear brother! Don’t expect too much. In a year or two – by-and-by, when things settle down – then you can see how it’s going to be.”

“But don’t you think it possible that things may never settle down, but continue rising up instead?” said Mr. Vincent, making a little venture in the inspiration of the moment.

Mr. Tufton shook his head and raised his large hands slowly, with a deprecating regretful motion, to hold them over the fire. “Alas! he’s got the fever already,” said the old minister. “My dear young brother, you shall have my experience to refer to always. You’re always welcome to my advice. Dear Tozer said to me just yesterday, ‘You point out the pitfalls to him, Mr. Tufton, and give him your advice, and I’ll take care that he shan’t go wrong outside,’ says dear Tozer. Ah, an invaluable man!”

“But a little disposed to interfere, I think,” said Vincent, with an irrestrainable inclination to show his profound disrelish of all the advice which was about to be given him.

Mr. Tufton raised his heavy forefinger and shook it slowly. “No – no. Be careful, my dear brother. You must keep well with your deacons. You must not take up prejudices against them. Dear Tozer is a man of a thousand – a man of a thousand! Dear Tozer, if you listen to him, will keep you out of trouble. The trouble he takes and the money he spends for Salem Chapel is, mark my words, unknown – and,” added the old pastor, awfully syllabling the long word in his solemn bass, “in-con-ceiv-able.”

“He is a bore and an ass for all that,” said the daring invalid opposite, with perfect equanimity, as if uttering the most patent and apparent of truths. “Don’t you give in to him, Mr. Vincent. A pretty business you will have with them all,” she continued, dropping her knitting-needles and lifting her pale-blue eyes, with their sudden green gleam, to the face of the new-comer with a rapid perception of his character, which, having no sympathy in it, but rather a certain mischievous and pleased satisfaction in his probable discomfiture, gave anything but comfort to the object of her observation. “You are something new for them to pet and badger. I wonder how long they’ll be of killing Mr. Vincent. Papa’s tough; but you remember, mamma, they finished off the other man before us in two years.”

“Oh, hush, Adelaide, hush! you’ll frighten Mr. Vincent,” cried the kind little mother, with uneasy looks: “when he comes to see us and cheer us up – as I am sure is very kind of him – it is a shame to put all sorts of things in his head, as papa and you do. Never mind Adelaide, Mr. Vincent, dear. Do your duty, and never fear anybody; that’s always been my maxim, and I’ve always found it answer. Not going away, are you? Dear, dear! and we’ve had no wise talk at all, and never once asked for your poor dear mother – quite well, I hope? – and Miss Susan? You should have them come and see you, and cheer you up. Well, good morning, if you must go; don’t be long before you come again.”

“And, my dear young brother, don’t take up any prejudices,” interposed Mr. Tufton, in tremulous bass, as he pressed Vincent’s half-reluctant fingers in that large soft flabby ministerial hand. Adelaide added nothing to these valedictions; but when she too had received his leave-taking, and he had emerged from the shadow of the geraniums, the observer paused once more in her knitting. “This one will not hold out two years,” said Adelaide, calmly, to herself, no one else paying any attention; and she returned to her work with the zest of a spectator at the commencement of an exciting drama. She did double work all the afternoon under the influence of this refreshing stimulant. It was quite a new interest in her life.

Meanwhile young Vincent left the green gates of Siloam Cottage with no very comfortable feelings – with feelings, indeed, the reverse of comfortable, yet conscious of a certain swell and elevation in his mind at the same moment. It was for him to show the entire community of Carlingford the difference between his reign and the old regime . It was for him to change the face of affairs – to reduce Tozer into his due place of subordination, and to bring in an influx of new life, intelligence, and enlightenment over the prostrate butterman. The very sordidness and contraction of the little world into which he had just received so distinct a view, promoted the revulsion of feeling which now cheered him. The aspiring young man could as soon have consented to lose his individuality altogether as to acknowledge the most distant possibility of accepting Tozer as his guide, philosopher, and friend. He went back again through Grove Street, heated and hastened on his way by those impatient thoughts. When he came as far as Salem, he could not but pause to look at it with its pinched gable and mean little belfry, innocent of a bell. The day was overclouded, and no clearness of atmosphere relieved the aspect of the shabby chapel, with its black railing, and locked gates, and dank flowerless grass inside. To see anything venerable or sacred in the aspect of such a place, required an amount of illusion and glamour which the young minister could not summon into his eyes. It was not the centre of light in a dark place, the simple tribune from which the people’s preacher should proclaim, to the awe and conviction of the multitude, that Gospel once preached to the poor, of which he flattered himself he should be the truest messenger in Carlingford. Such had been the young man’s dreams in Homerton – dreams mingled, it is true, with personal ambition, but full notwithstanding of generous enthusiasm. No – nothing of the kind. Only Salem Chapel, with so many pews let, and so many still to be disposed of, and Tozer a guardian angel at the door. Mr. Vincent was so far left to himself as to give vent to an impatient exclamation as he turned away. But still matters were not hopeless. He himself was a very different man from Mr. Tufton. Kindred spirits there must surely be in Carlingford to answer to the call of his. Another day might dawn for the Nonconformists, who were not aware of their own dignity. With this thought he retraced his steps a little, and, with an impulse which he did not explain to himself, threaded his way up a narrow lane and emerged into Back Grove Street, about the spot where he had lately paid his pastoral visit, and made so unexpected an acquaintance. This woman – or should he not say lady? – was a kind of first-fruits of his mission. The young man looked up with a certain wistful interest at the house in which she lived. She was neither young nor fair, it is true, but she interested the youthful Nonconformist, who was not too old for impulses of chivalry, and who could not forget her poor fingers scarred with her rough work. He had no other motive for passing the house but that of sympathy and compassion for the forlorn brave creature who was so unlike her surroundings; and no throbbing pulse or trembling nerve forewarned Arthur Vincent of the approach of fate.

At that moment, however, fate was approaching in the shape of a handsome carriage, which made quite an exaggeration of echo in this narrow back-street, which rang back every jingle of the harness and dint of the hoofs from every court and opening. It drew up before Mrs. Hilyard’s door – at the door of the house, at least, in which Mrs. Hilyard was a humble lodger; and while Vincent slowly approached, a brilliant vision suddenly appeared before him, rustling forth upon the crowded pavement, where the dirty children stood still to gape at her. A woman – a lady – a beautiful dazzling creature, resplendent in the sweetest English roses, the most delicate bewildering bloom. Though it was but for a moment, the bewildered young minister had time to note the dainty foot, the daintier hand, the smiling sunshiny eyes, the air of conscious supremacy, which was half command and half entreaty – an ineffable combination. That vision descended out of the heavenly chariot upon the mean pavement just as Mr. Vincent came up; and at the same moment a ragged boy, struck speechless, like the young minister, by the apparition, planted himself full in her way with open mouth and staring eyes, too much overpowered by sudden admiration to perceive that he stopped the path. Scarcely aware what he was doing, as much beauty-struck as his victim, Vincent, with a certain unconscious fury, seized the boy by the collar, and swung him impatiently off the pavement, with a feeling of positive resentment against the imp, whose rags were actually touching those sacred splendid draperies. The lady made a momentary pause, turned half round, smiled with a gracious inclination of her head, and entered at the open door, leaving the young pastor in an incomprehensible ecstasy, with his hat off, and all his pulses beating loud in his ears, riveted, as the romancers say, to the pavement. When the door shut he came to himself, stared wildly into the face of the next passenger who came along the narrow street, and then, becoming aware that he still stood uncovered, grew violently red, put on his hat, and went off at a great pace. But what was the use of going off? The deed was done. The world on the other side of these prancing horses was a different world from that on this side. Those other matters, of which he had been thinking so hotly, had suddenly faded into a background and accessories to the one triumphant figure which occupied all the scene. He scarcely asked himself who was that beautiful vision? The fact of her existence was at the moment too overpowering for any secondary inquiries. He had seen her – and lo! the universe was changed. The air tingled softly with the sound of prancing horses and rolling wheels, the air breathed an irresistible soft perfume, which could nevermore die out of it, the air rustled with the silken thrill of those womanly robes. There she had enthroned herself – not in his startled heart, but in the palpitating world, which formed in a moment’s time into one great background and framework for that beatific form.