“I’ll go light the fire, and get you a cup of tea—oh Lord! what Miss Susan would say if she knew you were here, and had got such a fright!” cried the old servant; “but now you’re composed, there’s nothing as’ll do you good like a cup of tea.”
“Thank you—yes; make it strong, and Mr. Arthur will have some too,” said the widow; “and take care the kettle is boiling; and then, Williams, you must not mind us, but go to bed.”
Vincent threw down his book, and stared at her with something of that impatience and half-contempt which had before moved him. “If the world were breaking up, I suppose women could still drink tea!” he said, bitterly.
“Oh, Arthur, my dear boy,” cried his mother, “don’t you see we must put the best face on it now? Everybody must not know that Susan has been carried away by a ⸻ O God, forgive me! don’t let me curse him, Arthur. Let us get away from Lonsdale, dear, before we say anything. Words will do no good. Oh, my dear boy, till we know better, Mr. Fordham is Susan’s betrothed husband, and he has gone to take care of her to Carlingford. Hush—don’t say any more. I am going to compose myself, Arthur, for my child’s sake,” cried the mother, with a smile of anguish, looking into her son’s face. How did she drive those tears back out of her patient eyes? how did she endure to talk to the old servant about what was to be done tomorrow—and how the sick lady was next door—till the excited and shivering attendant could be despatched upstairs and got out of the way? Woman’s weaker nature, that could mingle the common with the great; or woman’s strength, that could endure all things—which was it? The young man, sitting by in a sullen, intolerable suspense, waiting till it was practicable to rush away through the creeping gloom of night after the fugitives, could no more understand these phenomena of love and woe, than he could translate the distant mysteries of the spheres.
XVII
Early morning, but black as midnight; bitter cold, if bitterer cold could be, than that to which they entered when they first came to the deserted house; the little parlour, oh, so woefully trim and tidy, with the fire laid ready for lighting, which even the mother, anxious about her son, had not had the heart to light; the candle on the table between them lighting dimly this speechless interval; some shawls laid ready to take with them when they went back again to the earliest train; Mrs. Vincent sitting by with her bonnet on, and its veil drooping half over her pale face, sometimes rousing up to cast hidden looks of anxiety at her son, sometimes painfully saying something with a vain effort at smiling—what o’clock was it? when did he think they could reach town?—little ineffectual attempts at the common intercourse, which seemed somehow to deepen the dreadful silence, the shivering cold, the utter desolation of the scene. Such a night!—its minutes were hours as they stole by noiseless in murderous length and tedium—and the climax of its misery was in the little start with which Mrs. Vincent now and then woke up out of her own thoughts to make that pitiful effort to talk to her son.
They were sitting thus, waiting, not even venturing to look at each other, when a sudden sound startled them. Nothing more than a footstep outside approaching softly. A footstep—surely two steps. They could hear them far off in this wonderful stillness, making steady progress near—nearer. Mrs. Vincent rose up, stretching her little figure into a preternatural hysteric semblance of height. Who was it? Two people—surely women—and what women could be abroad at such an hour? One lighter, one heavier, irregular as female steps are, coming this way—this way! Her heart fluttered in the widow’s ears with a sound that all but obliterated those steps which still kept advancing. Hark, sudden silence! a pause—then, oh merciful heaven, could it be true? a tinkle at the bell—a summons at the closed door.
Mrs. Vincent had flown forth with open arms—with eyes blinded. The poor soul thought nothing less than that it was her child returned. They carried her back speechless, in a disappointment too cruel and bitter to have expression. Two women—one sober, sleepy, nervous, and full of trouble, unknown to either mother or son—the other with a certain dreadful inspiration in her dark face, and eyes that gleamed out of it as if they had concentrated into them all the blackness of the night.
“You are going back, and so am I,” Mrs. Hilyard said. “I came to say a word to you before I go away. If I have been anyhow the cause, forgive me. God knows, of all things in the world the last I dreamt of was to injure this good woman or invade her innocent house. Do you know where they have gone?—did she leave any letters?—Tell me. She shall be precious to me as my own, if I find them out.”
Mrs. Vincent freed herself from her son’s arms, and got up with her blanched face. “My daughter—followed me—to Carlingford,” she said, in broken words, with a determination which sat almost awful on her weakness. “We have had the great misfortune—to cross each other—on the way. I am going—after her—directly. I am not
