Salem Chapel · Chapter 4 (1/2)

IV

After the remarkable encounter which had thus happened to the young minister, life went on with him in the dullest routine for some days. Thursday came, and he had to go to Mrs. Brown’s tea-party, where, in the drawing-room upstairs, over the Devonshire Dairy, after tea, and music, and the diversions of the evening, he conducted prayers to the great secret satisfaction of the hostess, who felt that the superior piety of her entertainment entirely made up for any little advantage in point of gentility which Mrs. Tozer, with a grown-up daughter fresh from a boarding-school, might have over her. On Friday evening there was the singing-class at the chapel, which Mr. Vincent was expected to look in upon, and from which he had the privilege of walking home with Miss Tozer. When he arrived with his blooming charge at the private door, the existence of which he had not hitherto been aware of, Tozer himself appeared, to invite the young pastor to enter. This time it was the butterman’s unadorned domestic hearth to which Mr. Vincent was introduced. This happy privacy was in a little parlour, which, being on the same floor with the butter-shop, naturally was not without a reminiscence of the near vicinity of all those hams and cheeses⁠—a room nearly blocked up by the large family-table, at which, to the disgust of Phoebe, the apprentices sat at mealtimes along with the family. One little boy, distinguished out of doors by a red worsted comforter, was, besides Phoebe, the only member of the family itself now at home; the others being two sons, one in Australia, and the other studying for a minister, as Mrs. Tozer had already informed her pastor, with motherly pride. Mrs. Tozer sat in an easy-chair by the fire darning stockings on this October night; her husband, opposite to her, had been looking over his greasy books, one of which lay open upon a little writing-desk, where a bundle of smaller ones in red leather, with “Tozer, Cheesemonger,” stamped on them in gilt letters, lay waiting Phoebe’s arrival to be made up. The Benjamin of the house sat halfway down the long table with his slate working at his lessons. The margin of space round this long table scarcely counted in the aspect of the room. There was space enough for chairs to be set round it, and that was all: the table with its red-and-blue cover and the faces appearing above it, constituted the entire scene. Mr. Vincent stood uneasily at a corner when he was brought into the apartment, and distinctly placed himself at table, as if at a meal, when he sat down.

“Do you now take off your greatcoat, and make yourself comfortable,” said Mrs. Tozer; “there’s a bit of supper coming presently. This is just what I like, is this. A party is very well in its way, Mr. Vincent, sir; but when a gen’leman comes in familiar, and takes us just as we are, that’s what I like. We never can be took wrong of an evening, Tozer and me; there’s always a bit of something comfortable for supper; and after the shop’s shut in them long evenings, time’s free. Phoebe, make haste and take off your things. What a colour you’ve got, to be sure, with the night air! I declare, Pa, somebody must have been saying something to her, or she’d never look so bright.”

“I daresay there’s more things than music gets talked of at the singing,” said Tozer, thus appealed to. “But she’d do a deal better if she’d try to improve her mind than take notice what the young fellows says.”

“Oh, Pa, the idea! and before Mr. Vincent too,” cried Phoebe⁠—“to think I should ever dream of listening to anything that anybody might choose to say!”

Vincent, to whom the eyes of the whole family turned, grinned a feeble smile, but, groaning in his mind, was totally unequal to the effort of saying anything. After a moment’s pause of half-disappointed expectation, Phoebe disappeared to take off her bonnet; and Mrs. Tozer, bestirring herself, cleared away the desk and books, and went into the kitchen to inquire into the supper. The minister and the deacon were accordingly left alone.

“Three more pews applied for this week⁠—fifteen sittings in all,” said Mr. Tozer; “that’s what I call satisfactory, that is. We mustn’t let the steam go down⁠—not on no account. You keep well at them of Sundays, Mr. Vincent, and trust to the managers, sir, to keep ’em up to their dooty. Me and Mr. Tufton was consulting the other day. He says as we oughtn’t to spare you, and you oughtn’t to spare yourself. There hasn’t been such a opening not in our connection for fifteen year. We all look to you to go into it, Mr. Vincent. If all goes as I expect, and you keep up as you’re doing, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to put another fifty to the salary next year.”

“Oh!” said poor Vincent, with a miserable face. He had been rather pleased to hear about the “opening,” but this matter-of-fact encouragement and stimulus threw him back into dismay and disgust.

“Yes,” said the deacon, “though I wouldn’t advise you, as a young man settin’ out in life, to calculate upon it, yet we all think it more than likely; but if you was to ask my advice, I’d say to give it ’em a little more plain⁠—meaning the Church folks. It’s expected of a new man. I’d touch ’em up in the State-Church line, Mr. Vincent, if I was you. Give us a coorse upon the anomalies, and that sort of thing⁠—the bishops in their palaces, and the fisherman as was the start of it all; there’s a deal to be done in that way. It always tells; and my opinion is as you might secure the most part of the young men and thinkers, and them as can see what’s what, if you lay it on pretty strong. Not,” added the deacon, remembering in time to add that necessary salve to the conscience⁠—“not as I would have you neglect what’s more important; but, after all, what is more important, Mr. Vincent, than freedom of opinion and choosing your own religious teacher? You can’t put gospel truth in a man’s mind till you’ve freed him out of them bonds. It stands to reason⁠—as long as he believes just what he’s told, and has it all made out for him the very words he’s to pray, there may be feelin’, sir, but there can’t be no spiritual understandin’ in that man.”

“Well, one can’t deny that there have been enlightened men in the Church of England,” said the young Nonconformist, with lofty candour. “The inconsistencies of the human mind are wonderful; and it is coming to be pretty clearly understood in the intellectual world, that a man may show the most penetrating genius, and even the widest liberality, and yet be led a willing slave in the bonds of religious rite and ceremony. One cannot understand it, it is true; but in our clearer atmosphere we are bound to exercise Christian charity. Great as the advantages are on our side of the question, I would not willingly hurt the feelings of a sincere Churchman, who, for anything I know, may be the best of men.”

Mr. Tozer paused with a “humph!” of uncertainty; rather dazzled with the fine language, but doubtful of the sentiment. At length light seemed to dawn upon the excellent butterman. “Bless my soul! that’s a new view,” said Tozer; “that’s taking the superior line over them! My impression is as that would tell beautiful. Eh! it’s famous, that is! I’ve heard a many gentlemen attacking the Church, like, from down below, and giving it her about her money and her greatness, and all that; but our clearer atmosphere⁠—there’s the point! I always knew as you was a clever young man, Mr. Vincent, and expected a deal from you; but that’s a new view, that is!”

“Oh, Pa, dear! don’t be always talking about chapel business,” said Miss Phoebe, coming in. “I am sure Mr. Vincent is sick to death of Salem. I am sure his heart is in some other place now; and if you bore him always about the chapel, he’ll never, never take to Carlingford. Oh, Mr. Vincent, I am sure you know it is quite true!”

“Indeed,” said the young minister, with a sudden recollection, “I can vouch for my heart being in Carlingford, and nowhere else;” and as he spoke his colour rose. Phoebe clapped her hands with a little semblance of confusion.

“Oh, la!” cried that young lady, “that is quite as good as a confession that you have lost it, Mr. Vincent. Oh, I am so interested! I wonder who it can be!”

“Hush, child; I daresay we shall know before long,” said Mrs. Tozer, who had also rejoined the domestic party; “and don’t you colour up or look ashamed, Mr. Vincent. Take my word, it’s the very best a young minister can do. To be sure, where there’s a quantity of young ladies in a congregation, it sometimes makes a little dispeace; but there ain’t to say many to choose from in Salem.”

“La, mamma, how can you think it’s a lady in Salem?” cried Phoebe, in a flutter of consciousness.

“Oh, you curious thing!” cried Mrs. Tozer: “she’ll never rest, Mr. Vincent, till she’s found it all out. She always was, from a child, a dreadful one for finding out a secret. But don’t you trouble yourself; it’s the very best thing a young minister can do.”

Poor Vincent made a hasty effort to exculpate himself from the soft impeachment, but with no effect. Smiles, innuendoes, a succession of questions asked by Phoebe, who retired, whenever she had made her remark, with conscious looks and pink blushes, perpetually renewed this delightful subject. The unlucky young man retired upon Tozer. In desperation he laid himself open to the less troublesome infliction of the butterman’s advice. In the meantime the table was spread, and supper appeared in most substantial and savoury shape; the only drawback being, that whenever the door was opened, the odours of bacon and cheese from the shop came in like a musty shadow of the boiled ham and hot sausages within.

“I am very partial to your style, Mr. Vincent,” said the deacon; “there’s just one thing I’d like to observe, sir, if you’ll excuse me. I’d give ’em a coorse; there’s nothing takes like a coorse in our connection. Whether it’s on a chapter or a book of Scripture, or on a perticklar doctrine, I’d make a pint of giving ’em a coorse if it was me. There was Mr. Bailey, of Parson’s Green, as was so popular before he married⁠—he had a historical coorse in the evenings, and a coorse upon the eighth of Romans in the morning; and it was astonishing to see how they took. I walked over many and many’s the summer evening myself, he kep’ up the interest so. There ain’t a cleverer man in our body, nor wasn’t a better liked as he was then.”

“And now I understand he’s gone away⁠—what was the reason?” asked Mr. Vincent.

Tozer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “All along of the women: they didn’t like his wife; and my own opinion is, he fell off dreadful. Last time I heard him, I made up my mind I’d never go back again⁠—me that was such an admirer of his; and the managers found the chapel was falling off, and a deputation waited on him; and, to be sure, he saw it his duty to go.”

“And, oh, she was so sweetly pretty!” cried Miss Phoebe: “but pray, pray, Mr. Vincent, don’t look so pale. If you marry a pretty lady, we’ll all be so kind to her! We shan’t grudge her our minister; we shall⁠—”

Here Miss Phoebe paused, overcome by her emotions.

“I do declare there never was such a child,” said Mrs. Tozer: “it’s none of your business, Phoebe. She’s a great deal too feelin’, Mr. Vincent. But I don’t approve, for my part, of a minister marrying a lady as is too grand for her place, whatever Phoebe may say. It’s her that should teach suchlike as us humility and simple ways; and a fine lady isn’t no way suitable. Not to discourage you, Mr. Vincent, I haven’t a doubt, for my part, that you’ll make a nice choice.”

“I have not the least intention of trying the experiment,” said poor Vincent, with a faint smile; then, turning to his deacon, he plunged into the first subject that occurred to him. “Do you know a Mrs. Hilyard in Back Grove Street?” asked the young minister. “I went to see her the other day. Who is she, or where does she belong to, can you tell me?⁠—and which of your great ladies in Carlingford is it,” he added, with a little catching of his breath after a momentary pause, “who visits that poor lady? I saw a carriage at her door.”

“Meaning the poor woman at the back of the chapel?” said Tozer⁠—“I don’t know nothing of her, except that I visited there, sir, as you might do, in the way of dooty. Ah! I fear she’s in the gall of bitterness, Mr. Vincent; she didn’t take my ’umble advice, sir, not as a Christian ought. But she comes to the chapel regular enough; and you may be the means of putting better thoughts into her mind; and as for our great ladies in Carlingford,” continued Mr. Tozer, with the air of an authority, “never a one of them, I give you my word, would go out of her way a-visiting to one of the chapel folks. They’re a deal too bigoted for that, especially them at St. Roque’s.”

“Oh, Pa, how can you say so,” cried Phoebe, “when it’s very well known the ladies go everywhere, where the people are very, very poor? but then Mr. Vincent said a poor lady. Was it a nice carriage? The Miss Wodehouses always walk, and so does Mrs. Glen, and all the Strangeways. Oh, I know, it was the young Dowager⁠—that pretty, pretty lady, you know, mamma, that gives the grand parties, and lives in Grange Lane. I saw her carriage going up the lane by the chapel once. Oh, Mr. Vincent, wasn’t she very, very pretty, with blue eyes and brown hair?”

“I could not tell you what kind of eyes and hair they were,” said Mr. Vincent, trying hard to speak indifferently, and quite succeeding so far as Phoebe Tozer was concerned; for who could venture to associate the minister of Salem, even as a victim, with the bright eyes of Lady Western? “I thought it strange to see her there, whoever she was.”

“Oh, how insensible you are!” murmured Phoebe, across the table. Perhaps, considering all things, it was not strange that Phoebe should imagine her own pink bloom to have dimmed the young pastor’s appreciation of other beauty.

“But it was Mrs. Hilyard I inquired about, and not this Lady⁠—Lady what, Miss Phoebe?” asked the reverend hypocrite; “I don’t profess to be learned in titles, but hers is surely a strange one. I thought dowager was another word for an old woman.”

“She’s a beautiful young creature,” broke in the butterman. “I mayn’t approve of such goings-on, but I can’t shut my eyes. She deals with me regular, and I can tell you the shop looks like a different place when them eyes of hers are in it. She’s out of our line, and she’s out of your line, Mr. Vincent,” added Tozer, apologetically, coming down from his sudden enthusiasm, “or I mightn’t say as much as I do say, for she’s gay, and always a-giving parties, and spending her life in company, as I don’t approve of; but to look in her face, you couldn’t say a word against her⁠—nor I couldn’t. She might lead a man out of his wits, and I wouldn’t not to say blame him. If the angels are nicer to look at, it’s a wonder to me!” Having reached to this pitch of admiration, the alarmed butterman came to a sudden pause, looked round him somewhat dismayed, wiped his forehead, rubbed his hands, and evidently felt that he had committed himself, and was at the mercy of his audience. Little did the guilty Tozer imagine that never before⁠—not when giving counsel upon chapel business in the height of wisdom, or complimenting the sermon as only a chapel-manager, feeling in his heart that the seats were letting, could⁠—had he spoken so much to the purpose in young Vincent’s hearing, or won so much sympathy from the minister. As for the female part of the company, they were at first too much amazed for speech. “Upon my word, Papa!” burst from the lips of the half-laughing, half-angry Phoebe. Mrs. Tozer, who had been cutting bread with a large knife, hewed at her great loaf in silence, and not till that occupation was over divulged her sentiments.