Salem Chapel · Chapter 10 (1/3)

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On the next evening after this there was a tea-meeting in Salem Chapel. In the back premises behind the chapel were all needful accommodations for the provision of that popular refreshment⁠—boilers, tea-urns, unlimited crockery and pewter. In fact, it was one of Mr. Tozer’s boasts, that owing to the liberality of the “connection” in Carlingford, Salem was fully equipped in this respect, and did not need to borrow so much as a spoon or teapot, a very important matter under the circumstances. This, however, was the first tea-meeting which had taken place since that one at which Mr. Tufton’s purse had been presented to him, and the old pastor had taken leave of his flock. The young pastor, indeed, had set his face against tea-meetings. He was so far behind his age as to doubt their utility, and declared himself totally unqualified to preside over such assemblies; but, in the heat of his recent disappointment, when, stung by other people’s neglect, he had taken up Salem and all belonging to it into his bosom, a cruel use had been made of the young minister’s compliance. They had wrung a reluctant consent from him in that unguarded moment, and the walls of Carlingford had been for some days blazing with placards of the tea-meeting, at which the now famous (in Carlingford) lecturer on Church and State was to speak. Not Tozer, with all his eloquence, had been able to persuade the pastor to preside; but at least he was to appear, to take tea at that table elevated on the platform, where Phoebe Tozer, under the matronly care of Mrs. Brown (for it was necessary to divide these honours, and guard against jealousy), dispensed the fragrant lymph, and to address the meeting. There had been thoughts of a grand celebration in the Music Hall to do more honour to the occasion; but as that might have neutralised the advantages of having all the needful utensils within themselves, convenience and economy carried the day, and the scene of these festivities, as of all the previous festivities of Salem, was the large low room underneath the chapel, once intended for a school, but never used, except on Sundays, in that capacity. Thither for two or three days all the “young ladies” of the chapel had streamed to and fro, engaged in decorations. Some manufactured festoons of evergreens, some concocted pink and white roses in paper to embellish the same. The printed texts of the Sunday school were framed, and in some cases obliterated, in Christmas garlands. Christmas, indeed, was past, but there were still holly and red berries and green smooth laurel leaves. The Pigeon girls, Phoebe Tozer, Mrs. Brown’s niece from the country, and the other young people in Salem who were of sufficiently advanced position, enjoyed the preparations greatly⁠—entering into them with even greater heartiness than Lucy Wodehouse exhibited in the adornment of St. Roque’s, and taking as much pleasure in the task as if they had been picturesque Italians adorning the shrine of their favourite saint. Catterina and Francesca with their flower-garlands are figures worthy of any picture, and so is Lucy Wodehouse under the chancel arch at St. Roque’s; but how shall we venture to ask anybody’s sympathy for Phoebe and Maria Pigeon as they put up their festoons round the four square walls of the low schoolroom in preparation for the Salem tea-party? Nevertheless it is a fact that the two last mentioned had very much the same intentions and sensations, and amid the coils of fresh ivy and laurel did not look amiss in their cheerful labour⁠—a fact which, before the work was completed, had become perceptible to various individuals of the Carlingford public. But Mr. Vincent was, on this point, as on several others, unequal to the requirements of his position. When he did glance in for a moment of the afternoon of the eventful day, it was in company with Tozer and the Rev. Mr. Raffles of Shoebury, who was to take the chair. Mr. Raffles was very popular in Carlingford, as everywhere. To secure him for a tea-meeting was to secure its success. He examined into all the preparations, tasted the cake, pricked his fingers with the garlands to the immense delight of the young ladies, and complimented them on their skill with beaming cheerfulness; while the minister of Salem, on the contrary, stalked about by his side pale and preoccupied, with difficulty keeping himself from that contempt of the actual things around to which youth is so often tempted. His mind wandered off to the companion of his last night’s walk⁠—to the stranger pacing up and down that damp garden with inscrutable unknown thoughts⁠—to the beautiful creature within those lighted windows, so near and yet so overwhelmingly distant⁠—as if somehow they had abstracted life and got it among themselves. Mr. Vincent had little patience for what he considered the mean details of existence nearer at hand. As soon as he could possibly manage it, he escaped, regarding with a certain hopeless disgust the appearance he had to make in the evening, and without finding a single civil thing to say to the fair decorators. “My young brother looks sadly low and out of spirits,” said jolly Mr. Raffles. “What do you mean by being so unkind to the minister, Miss Phoebe, eh?” Poor Phoebe blushed pinker than ever, while the rest laughed. It was pleasant to be supposed “unkind” to the minister; and Phoebe resolved to do what she could to cheer him when she sat by his elbow at the platform table making tea for the visitors of the evening.

The evening came, and there was not a ticket to be had anywhere in Carlingford: the schoolroom, with its blazing gas, its festoons, and its mottoes, its tables groaning with dark-complexioned plumcake and heavy buns, was crowded quite beyond its accommodation; and the edifying sight might be seen of Tozer and his brother deacons, and indeed all who were sufficiently interested in the success of Salem to sacrifice themselves on its behalf, making an erratic but not unsubstantial tea in corners, to make room for the crowd. And in the highest good-humour was the crowd which surrounded all the narrow tables. The urns were well filled, the cake abundant, the company in its best attire. The ladies had bonnets, it is true, but these bonnets were worthy the occasion. At the table on the platform sat Mr. Raffles, in the chair, beaming upon the assembled party, with cheerful little Mrs. Tufton and Mrs. Brown at one side of him, and Phoebe looking very pink and pretty, shaded from the too enthusiastic admiration of the crowd below by the tea-urn at which she officiated. Next to her, the minister cast abstracted looks upon the assembly. He was, oh, so interesting in his silence and pallor!⁠—he spoke little; and when anyone addressed him, he had to come back as if from a distance to hear. If anybody could imagine that Mr. Raffles contrasted dangerously with Mr. Vincent in that reserve and quietness, it would be a mistake unworthy a philosophic observer. On the contrary, the Salem people were all doubly proud of their pastor. It was not to be expected that such a man as he should unbend as the reverend chairman did. They preferred that he should continue on his stilts. It would have been a personal humiliation to the real partisans of the chapel, had he really woke up and come down from that elevation. The more commonplace the ordinary “connection” was, the more proud they felt of their student and scholar. So Mr. Vincent leaned his head upon his hands and gazed unmolested over the lively company, taking in all the particulars of the scene, the busy groups engaged in mere tea-making and tea-consuming⁠—the flutter of enjoyment among humble girls and womankind who knew no pleasure more exciting⁠—the whispers which pointed out himself to strangers among the party⁠—the triumphant face of Tozer at the end of the room, jammed against the wall, drinking tea out of an empty sugar-basin. If the scene woke any movement of human sympathy in the bosom of the young Nonconformist, he was half ashamed of himself for it. What had the high mission of an evangelist⁠—the lofty ambition of a man trained to enlighten his country⁠—the warm assurance of talent which felt itself entitled to the highest sphere⁠—what had these great things to do in a Salem Chapel tea-meeting? So the lofty spirit held apart, gazing down from a mental elevation much higher than the platform; and all the people who had heard his lectures pointed him out to each other, and congratulated themselves on that studious and separated aspect which was so unlike other men. In fact, the fine superiority of Mr. Vincent was at the present moment the very thing that was wanted to rivet their chains. Even Mrs. Pigeon looked on with silent admiration. He was “high”⁠—never before had Salem known a minister who did not condescend to be gracious at a tea-meeting⁠—and the leader of the opposition honoured him in her heart.

And even when at last the social meal was over, when the urns were cleared away, and with a rustle and flutter the assembly composed itself to the intellectual regale about to follow, Mr. Vincent did not change his position. Mr. Raffles made quite one of his best speeches; he kept his audience in a perpetual flutter of laughter and applause; he set forth all the excellencies of the new minister with such detail and fullness as only the vainest could have swallowed. But the pleased congregation still applauded. He praised Mr. Tufton, the venerable father of the community, he praised the admirable deacons; he praised the arrangements. In short, Mr. Raffles applauded everybody, and everybody applauded Mr. Raffles. After the chairman had concluded his speech, the hero of the evening gathered himself up dreamily, and rose from Phoebe Tozer’s side. He told them he had been gazing at them this hour past, studying the scene before him; how strangely they appeared to him, standing on this little bright gaslighted perch amid the dark sea of life that surged round them; that now he and they were face to face with each other, it was not their social pleasure he was thinking of, but that dark unknown existence that throbbed and echoed around: he bade them remember the dark night which enclosed that town of Carlingford, without betraying the secret of its existence even to the nearest village; of those dark streets and houses which hid so many lives and hearts and tragic histories; he enlarged upon Mrs. Hilyard’s idea of the sentiment of “such a night,” till timid people threw glances behind them, and some sensitive mothers paused to wonder whether the minister could have heard that Tommy had fallen into the fire, or Mary scalded herself, and took this way to break the news. The speech was the strangest that ever was listened to at a tea-party. It was the wayward capricious pouring forth of a fanciful young mind under an unquiet influence, having no connection whatever with the “object,” the place, or the listeners. The consequence was, that it was listened to with breathless interest⁠—that the faces grew pale and the eyes bright, and shivers of restrained emotion ran through the astonished audience. Mr. Vincent perceived the effect of his eloquence, as a nursery storyteller perceives the rising sob of her little hearers. When he saw it, he awoke, as the same nursery minstrel does sometimes, to feel how unreal was the sentiment in his own breast which had produced this genuine feeling in others, and with a sudden amusement proceeded to deepen his colours and make bolder strokes of effect. His success was perfect; before he concluded, he had in imagination dismissed the harmless Salem people out of their very innocent recreation to the dark streets which thrilled round them⁠—to the world of unknown life, of which each man for himself had some knowledge⁠—to the tragedies that might be going on side by side with them, for aught they knew. His hearers drew a long breath when it was over. They were startled, frightened, enchanted. If they had been witnessing a melodrama, they scarcely could have been more excited. He had put the most dreadful suggestions in their mind of all sorts of possible trouble; he sat down with the consciousness of having done his duty by Salem for this night at least.

But when Tozer got up after him to tell about the prosperity of the congregation, the anticlimax was felt even by the people of Salem. Some said, “No, no,” audibly, some laughed, not a few rose up and went away. Vincent himself, feeling the room very hot, and not disliking the little commotion of interest which arose on his departure, withdrew himself from the platform, and made his way to the little vestry, where a breath of air was to be had; for, January night as it was, the crowd and the tea had established a very high temperature in the under-regions of Salem. He opened the window in the vestry, which looked out upon the damp ground behind the chapel and the few gravestones, and threw himself down on the little sofa with a sensation of mingled self-reproach and amusement. Somehow, even when one disapproves of one’s self for doing it, one has a certain enjoyment in bewildering the world. Mr. Vincent was rather pleased with his success, although it was only a variety of “humbug.” He entertained with Christian satisfaction the thought that he had succeeded in introducing a certain visionary uneasiness into the lively atmosphere of the tea-meeting⁠—and he was delighted with his own cleverness in spite of himself.

While he lay back on his sofa, and pondered this gratifying thought, he heard a subdued sound of voices outside⁠—voices and steps that fell with but little sound upon the damp grass. A languid momentary wonder touched the mind of the minister: who could have chosen so doleful a retirement? It was about the last place in the world for a lover’s interview, which was the first thing that suggested itself to the young man; the next moment he started bolt upright, and listened with undisguised curiosity. That voice so different from the careless voices of Salem, the delicate refined intonations which had startled him in the shabby little room in Back Grove Street, awoke an interest in his mind which no youthful accents in Carlingford could have excited. He sat upright on the instant, and edged towards the open window. The gas burned low in the little vestry, which nobody had been expected to enter, and the illumination from all the schoolroom windows, and sounds of cheering and commotion there, had doubtless made the absolute darkness and silence behind seem perfectly safe to the two invisible people now meeting under the cloud of night. Mr. Vincent was not startled into eavesdropping unawares, nor did he engage in any sophistical argument to justify himself for listening. On the contrary, he listened honestly, with the full intention of hearing all he could⁠—suddenly changed from the languid sentimentalist, painful and self-conscious, which the influences of the evening had made him, into a spectator very wide awake and anxious, straining his ear to catch some knowledge of a history, in which a crowd of presentiments warned him that he himself should yet be concerned.

“If you must speak, speak here,” said that voice which Vincent had recognised: “it is scarcely the atmosphere for a man of your fine taste, to be sure; but considering the subject of the conference, it will do. What do you want with me?”

“By Jove, it looks dangerous!⁠—what do you mean to suggest by this sweet rendezvous⁠—murder?” said the man, whoever he was, who had accompanied Mrs. Hilyard to the damp yard of Salem Chapel, with its scattered graves.

“My nerves are strong,” she answered. “It is a pity you should take the trouble to be melodramatic. Do you think I am vain enough to imagine that you could subject yourself to all the unpleasant accessories of being hanged on my account? Fancy a rough hempen rope, and the dirty fingers that would adjust it. Pah! you would not risk it for me.”