CHAPTER III
filled up the tiny apartment, so that quite a dislocation and rearrangement of everything was necessary before a chair could be got for the visitor, and he got into it. Though it was rather warm for October out of doors, a fire, large for the size of the room, was burning in the fireplace, on either side of which was an easy-chair and an invalid. The one fronting the light, and consequently fronting the visitor, was Adelaide Tufton, the old ministers daughter, who had been confined to that chair longer than Phœbe Tozer could remember; and who, during that long seclusion, had knitted, as all Salem Chapel believed, without intermission, nobody having ever yet succeeded in discovering where the mysterious results of her labour went to. She was knitting now, reclining back in the cushioned chair which had been made for her, and was her shell and habitation. A very pale, emaciated, eager-looking woman, not much above thirty, but looking, after half a lifetime spent in that chair, any age that imagination might suggest; a creature altogether separated from the world separated from life, it would be more proper to say for nobody more interested in the world and other peoples share of it than Adelaide Tufton existed in Carlingford. She had light-blue eyes, rather prominent, which lightened without giving much expression to her perfectly colourless face. Her very hair was pale, and lay in braids of a clayey yellow, too listless and dull to be called brown, upon the thin temples, over which the thin white skin seemed to be strained like an over-tight bandage. Somehow, however, people who were used to seeing her, were not so sorry as they might have been for Adelaide Tufton. No one could exactly say why; but she somehow appeared, in the opinion of Salem Chapel, to indemnify herself for her privations, and was treated, if without much sympathy, at least without that ostentatious pity which is so galling to the helpless. Few people could afford to be sorry for so quick-sighted and all-remembering an observer; and the consequence was, that Adelaide, almost without knowing it, had managed to neutralise her own disabilities, and to be acknowledged as an equal in the general conflict, which she could enter only with her sharp tongue and her quick eye.
It was Mr. Tufton himself who sat opposite his large expanse of face, with the white hair which had been apostrophised as venerable at so many Salem tea-parties, and which Vincent himself had offered homage to, looming dimly through the green shade of the geraniums, as he sat with his back to the window. He had a green shade over his eyes besides, and his head moved with a slight palsied tremor, which was now the only remnant of that visitation which had saved his feelings, and dismissed more benignly than Tozer and his brother deacons the old pastor from his old pulpit. He sat very contentedly doing nothing, with his large feet in large loose slippers, and his elbows supported on the arms of his chair. By the evidence of Mrs. Tuftons spectacles, and the newspaper lying on the table, it was apparent that she had been reading the Carlingford Gazette to her helpless companions; and that humble journal, which young Vincent had kicked to the other end of his room before coming out, had made the morning pass very pleasantly to the three secluded inmates of Siloam Cottage, which was the name of the old ministers humble home. Mr. Tufton said umble ome, and so did his wife. They came from storied Islington, both of them, and were of highly respectable connections, not to say that Mrs. Tufton had a little property as well; and, acting in laudable opposition to the general practice of poor ministers wives, had brought many dividends and few children to the limited but comfortable fireside. Mr. Vincent could not deny that it was comfortable in its way, and quite satisfied its owners, as he sat down in the shade of the geraniums in front of the fire, between Adelaide Tufton and her father; but, oh heavens! to think of such a home as all that, after Homerton and high Nonconformist hopes, could come to himself! The idea, however, was one which did not occur to the young minister. He sat down compassionately, seeing no analogy whatever between his own position and theirs; scarcely even seeing the superficial contrast, which might have struck anybody, between his active youth and their helplessness and suffering. He was neither hard-hearted nor unsympathetic, but somehow the easy moral of that contrast never occurred to him. Adelaide Tuftons bloodless countenance conveyed an idea of age to Arthur Vincent; her father was really old. The young man saw no grounds on which to form any comparison. It was natural enough for the old man and ailing woman to be as they were, just as it was natural for him,
unconscious that dear Tozer had already begun to suggest a severance of that tie before gentle sickness did it for him, a congregation may be supposed to be a little unsettled, without any offence to you, my dear brother. If I could appear myself and show my respect to your ministry, it would have a good effect, no doubt; but I am laid aside, laid aside, brother Vincent! I can only help you with my prayers.