“But it was Mrs. Hilyard I inquired about, and not this Lady – Lady what, Miss Phœbe?” 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 Phœbe. 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.
“Some bread, Mr. Vincent?” said at last that injured woman: “that’s how it is with all you men. Niver a one, however you may have been brought up, nor whatever pious ways you may have been used to, can stand out against a pretty face. Thank goodness, we know better. Beauty’s but skin-deep, Mr. Vincent; and, for my part, I can’t see the difference between one pair o’ eyes and another. I daresay I see as well out of mine as Lady Western does out o’ hers, though Tozer goes on about ’em. It’s a mercy for the world, women ain’t carried away so; and to hear a man as is the father of a family, and ought to set an example, a-talking like this in his own house! What is the minister to think, Tozer? and Phœbe, a girl as is as likely to take up notions about her looks as most? It’s what I didn’t expect from you.”
“La, mamma! as if there was any likeness between Lady Western and me!” cried Phœbe, lifting a not-unexpectant face across the table. But Mr. Vincent was not equal to the occasion. In that locale, and under these circumstances, a tolerable breadth of compliment would not have shocked anybody’s feelings; but the pastor neglected his opportunities. He sat silent, and made no reply to Phœbe’s look. He even at this moment, if truth must be told, devoted himself to the well-filled plate which Mrs. Tozer’s hospitality had set before him. He would fain have made a diversion in poor Tozer’s favour had anything occurred to him in the thrill of sudden excitement which Tozer’s declaration had surprised him into. As it was, tingling with anxiety to hear more of that unknown enchantress, whose presence made sunshine even in the butterman’s shop, no indifferent words would find their way to Vincent’s lips. So he bestowed his attentions instead upon the comfortable supper to which everybody around him, quite unexcited by this little interlude, was doing full justice, and, not venturing to ask, listened with a palpitating heart.
“You see, Mr. Vincent,” resumed Mrs. Tozer, “that title of ‘the young Dowager’ has been given to Lady Western by them as is her chief friends in Carlingford. Such little things comes to our knowledge as they mightn’t come to other folks in our situation, by us serving the best families. There’s but two families in Grange Lane as don’t deal with Tozer, and one of them’s a new-comer as knows no better, and the other a stingy old bachelor, as we wouldn’t go across the road to get his custom. A well-kept house must have its butter, and its cheese, and its ham regular; but when there’s but a man and a maid, and them nigh as bilious as the master, and picking bits of cheese as one never heard the name of, and as has to be sent to town for, or to the Italian shop, it stands to reason neither me nor Tozer cares for a customer like that.”
“Oh, Ma, what does Mr. Vincent care about the customers?” cried Phœbe, in despair.
“He might, then, before all’s done,” said the deaconess. “We couldn’t be as good friends to the chapel, nor as serviceable, nor as well thought on in our connection, if it wasn’t for the customers. So you see, sir, Lady Western, she’s a young lady not a deal older than my Phœbe, but by reason of having married an old man, she has a step-son twice as old as herself, and he’s married; and so this gay pretty creature here, she’s the Dowager Lady Western. I’ve seen her with young Lady Western, her step-daughter-in-law, and young Lady Western was a deal older, and more serious-looking, and knew twenty times more of life than the Dowager – and you may be sure she don’t lose the opportunity to laugh at it neither – and so that’s how the name arose.”
“Thank you for the explanation; and I suppose, of course, she lives in Grange Lane,” said the pastor, still bending with devotion over his plate.
“Dear, dear, you don’t eat nothink, Mr. Vincent,” cried his benevolent hostess; “that comes of study, as I’m always a-telling Tozer. A deal better, says I, to root the minister out, and get him to move about for the good of his health, than to put him up to sermons and coorses, when we’re all as pleased as Punch to start with. She lives in Grange Lane, to be sure, as they most all do as is anything in Carlingford. Fashion’s all – but I like a bit of stir and life myself, and couldn’t a-bear them close walls. But it would be news in Salem that we was spending our precious time a-talking over a lady like Lady Western; and as for the woman at the back of the chapel, don’t you be led away to go to everybody as Mrs. Brown sends you to, Mr. Vincent. She’s a good soul, but she’s always a-picking up somebody. Tozer’s been called up at twelve o’clock, when we were all a-bed, to see somebody as was dying; and there was no dying about it, but only Mrs. Brown’s way. My son, being at his eddication for a minister, makes me feel mother-like to a young pastor, Mr. Vincent. I’d be grateful to anybody as would give my boy warning when it comes to be his time.”
“I almost wonder,” said Vincent, with a little natural impatience, “that you did not struggle on with Mr. Tufton for a little longer, till your son’s education was finished.”
Mrs. Tozer held up her head with gratified pride. “He’ll be two years before he’s ready, and there’s never no telling what may happen in that time,” said the pleased mother, forgetting how little favourable to her guest was any anticipated contingency. The words were very innocently spoken, but they had their effect upon Vincent. He made haste to extricate himself from the urgent hospitality which surrounded him. He was deafer than ever to Miss Phœbe’s remarks, and listened with a little impatience to Tozer’s wisdom. As soon as he could manage it, he left them, with abundant material for his thoughts. “There’s never no telling what may happen in that time,” rang in his ears as he crossed George Street to his lodging, and the young minister could scarcely check the disgust and impatience which were rising in his mind. In all the pride of his young intellect, to be advised by Tozer – to have warning stories told him of that unfortunate brother in Parson’s Green, whose pretty wife made herself obnoxious to the deacons’ wives – to have the support afforded by the butterman to the chapel thrown in his face with such an undisguised claim upon his gratitude – oh heaven, was this what Homerton was to come to? Perhaps he had been brought here, in all the young flush of his hopes, only to have the life crushed out of him by those remorseless chapel-managers, and room made over his tarnished fame and mortified expectations – over his body, as the young man said to himself in unconscious heroics – for young Tozer’s triumphant entrance. On the whole, it was not to be supposed that to see himself at the mercy of such a limited and jealous coterie – people proud of their liberality to the chapel, and altogether unable to comprehend