And, looking into his mother’s soft eyes, the young Nonconformist retreated, and made no more attempts to shake her. Not the invulnerability of the fortress alone discouraged him—though that was mildly obdurate, and proof to argument—but a certain uneasiness in the thought of that meeting, an inclination to postpone it, and stave off the thought of all that might follow, surprised himself in his own mind. Why he should be afraid of the encounter, or how any complication could arise out of it, he could not by any means imagine, but such was the instinctive sentiment in his heart.
Accordingly he went up to London by the train, leaving Mrs. Hilyard unwarned, and his mother reposing on the sofa, from which, it is sad to say, she rose a few minutes after he was gone, to refresh herself by tidying his bookcase and looking over all his linen and stockings, in which last she found a very wholesome subject of contemplation, which relieved the pressure of her thoughts much more effectually than could have been done by the rest which she originally proposed. Arthur, for his part, went up to London with a certain nervous thrill of anxiety rising in his breast as he approached the scene and the moment of his inquiries; though it was still only by intervals that he realised the momentous nature of those inquiries, on the result of which poor Susan’s harmless girlish life, all unconscious of the danger that threatened it, hung in the balance. Poor Susan! just then going on with a bride’s preparations for the approaching climax of her youthful existence. Was she, indeed, really a bride, with nothing but truth and sweet honour in the contract that bound her, or was she the sport of a villainous pastime that would break her heart, and might have shipwrecked her fair fame and innocent existence? Her brother set his teeth hard as he asked himself that question. Minister as he was, it might have been a dangerous chance for Fordham, had he come at that moment without ample proofs of guiltlessness in the Nonconformist’s way.
When he got to town, he whirled, as fast as it was possible to go, to the address where Susan’s guileless letters were sent almost daily. It was in a street off Piccadilly, full of lodging-houses, and all manner of hangers-on and ministrants to the world of fashion. He found the house directly, and was somewhat comforted to find it really an actual house, and not a myth or Doubtful Castle, or a post-office window. He knocked with the real knocker, and heard the bell peal through the comparative silence in the street, and insensibly cheered up, and began to look forward to the appearance of a real Mr. Fordham, with unquestionable private history and troops of friends. A quiet house, scrupulously clean, entirely respectable, yet distinct in all its features of lodging-house; a groom in the area below, talking to an invisible somebody, also a man, who seemed to be cleaning somebody else’s boots; upstairs, at the first-floor balcony, a smart little tiger making a fashion of watering plants, and actually doing his best to sprinkle the conversational groom below; altogether a superabundance of male attendants, quite incompatible with the integrity of the small dwelling-place as a private house. Another man, who evidently belonged to the place, opened the door, interrupting Vincent suddenly in his observations—an elderly man, half servant, half master, in reality the proprietor of the place, ready either to wait or be waited on as occasion might require. Turning with a little start from his inspection of the attendant circumstances, Vincent asked, did Mr. Fordham live there?
The man made a momentary but visible pause; whatever it might betoken, it was not ignorance. He did not answer with the alacrity of frank knowledge or simple non-information. He paused, then said, “Mr. Fordham, sir?” looking intently at Vincent, and taking in every particular of his appearance, dress, and professional looks, with one rapid glance.
“Mr. Fordham,” repeated Vincent, “does he live here?”
Once more the man perused him, swiftly and cautiously. “No, sir, he does not live here,” was the second response.
“I was told this was his address,” said Vincent. “I perceive you are not ignorant of him; where does he live? I know his letters come here.”
“There are a many gentlemen in the house in the course of the season,” answered the man, still on the alert to find out Vincent’s meaning by his looks—“sometimes letters keep on coming months after they are gone. When we knows their home address, sir, we sends them; when we don’t, we keeps them by us till we see if any owner turns up. Gen’leman of the name of Fordham?—do you happen to know, sir, what part o’ the country he comes from? There’s the Lincolnshire Fordhams, as you know, sir, and the Northumberland Fordhams; but there’s no gen’leman of that name lives here.”
“I am sure you know perfectly whom I mean,” said Vincent, in his heat and impatience. “I don’t mean Mr. Fordham any harm—I only want to see him, or to get some information about him, if he is not to be seen. Tell me where he does live, or tell me which of his friends is in town, that I may ask them. I tell you I don’t mean Mr. Fordham any harm.”
“No, sir?—nor I don’t know as anybody means any harm,” said the man, once more examining Vincent’s appearance. “What was it as you were wishing to know? Though I ain’t acquainted with the gen’leman myself, the missis or some of the people may be. We have a many coming and going, and I might confuse a name.—What
