“I can’t eat this morning; don’t ask me. Mother, get your bonnet on,” said the young man; “we must go to see Mrs. Hilyard today.”
“Yes, Arthur,” said Mrs. Vincent, meekly; she had determined not to see Mrs. Hilyard, of whom her gentle respectability was suspicious; but, startled by her son’s looks, and by the evident arrival of that period, instinctively perceived by most women, at which a man snatches the reins out of his adviser’s hand, and has his way, the alarmed and anxious mother let her arms fall, and gave in without a struggle.
“The fact is, I heard of Mr. Fordham last night,” said Vincent, walking about the room, lifting up and setting down again abstractedly the things on the table. “Lady Western knows him, it appears; perhaps Mrs. Hilyard does too.”
“Lady Western knows him? Oh, Arthur, tell me—what did she say?” cried his mother, clasping her hands.
“She said he could be trusted—with life—to death,” said Vincent, very low, with an inaudible groan in his heart. He was prepared for the joy and the tears, and the thanksgiving with which his words were received; but he could not have believed, how sharply his mother’s exclamation, “God bless my Susan! now I am happy about her, Arthur. I could be content to die,” would go to his heart. Susan, yes;—it was right to be happy about her; and as for himself, who cared? He shut up his heart in that bitterness; but it filled him with an irritation and restlessness which he could not subdue.
“We must go to Mrs. Hilyard; probably she can tell us more,” he said, abruptly; “and there is her child to speak of. I blame myself,” he added, with impatience, “for not telling her before. Let us go now directly—never mind ringing the bell; all that can be done when we are out. Dinner? oh, for heaven’s sake, let them manage that! Where is your bonnet, mother? the air will do me good after a bad night.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Vincent, moved by this last argument. It must be his headache, no doubt, she tried to persuade herself. Stimulated by the sound of his footstep in the next room, she lost very little time over her toilette. Perhaps the chill January air, sharp with frost, air full of natural exhilaration and refreshment, did bring a certain relief to the young Nonconformist’s aching temples and exasperated temper. It was with difficulty his mother kept time with his long strides, as he hurried her along the street, not leaving her time to look at Salem, which was naturally the most interesting point in Carlingford to the minister’s mother. Before she had half prepared herself for this interview, he had hurried her up the narrow bare staircase which led to Mrs. Hilyard’s lodgings. On the landing, with the door half open, stood Lady Western’s big footman, fully occupying the narrow standing-ground, and shedding a radiance of plush over the whole shabby house. The result upon Mrs. Vincent was an immediate increase of comfort, for surely the woman must be respectable to whom people sent messages by so grand a functionary. The sight of the man struck Vincent like another pang. She had sent to take counsel, no doubt, on the evidently unlooked-for information which had startled her so last night.
“Come in,” said the inhabitant of the room. She was folding a note for which the footman waited. Things were just as usual in that shabby place. The coarse stuff at which she had been working lay on the table beside her. Seeing a woman with Vincent, she got up quickly, and turned her keen eyes upon the newcomer. The timid doubtful mother, the young man, somewhat arbitrary and self-willed, who had brought his companion there against her will, the very look, half fright, half suspicion, which Mrs. Vincent threw round the room, explained matters to this quick observer. She was mistress of the position at once.
“Take this to Lady Western, John,” said Mrs. Hilyard. “She may come when she pleases—I shall be at home all day; but tell her to send a maid next time, for you are much too magnificent for Back Grove Street. This is Mrs. Vincent, I know. Your son has brought you to see me, and I hope you have not come to say that I was too rash in asking a Christian kindness from this young man’s mother. If he had not behaved like a paladin, I should not have ventured upon it; but when a young man conducts himself so, I think his mother is a good woman. You have taken in my child?”
She had taken Mrs. Vincent by both hands, and placed her in a chair, and sat down beside her. The widow had not a word to say. What with the praise of her son, which was music to her ears—what with the confusion of her own position, she was painfully embarrassed and at a loss, and anxiously full of explanations. “Susan has, I have no doubt; but
