The Perpetual Curate

By this time Mr Wentworth had awakened to a sense of the real meaning of Elsworthy's talk. He sat upright on his chair, and looked into the face of the worthy shopkeeper until the poor man trembled. "A talk about the clergyman?" said the Curate. "About me, do you mean? and what has little Rosa to do with me? Have you gone crazy in Carlingford – what is the meaning of it all?" He sat with his elbows on the counter, looking at his trembling adherent – looking through and through him, as Elsworthy said. "I should be glad of an explanation; what does it mean?" said Mr Wentworth, with a look which there was no evading; and the clerk of St Roque's cast an anxious glance round him for help. He would have accepted it from any quarter at that overwhelming moment; but there was not even an errand-boy to divert from him the Curate's terrible eyes.

"I – I don't know – I – can't tell how it got up," said the unhappy man, who had not even his "missis" in the parlour as a moral support. "One thing as I know is, it wasn't no blame o' mine. I as good as went down on my knees to them three respected ladies when they come to inquire. I said as it was kindness in you a-seeing of the child home, and didn't mean nothing more. I ask you, sir, what could I do?" cried Mr Elsworthy. "Folks in Carlingford will talk o' two straws if they're a-seen a-blowing up Grange Lane on the same breath o' wind. I couldn't do no more nor contradict it," cried Rosa's guardian, getting excited in his self-defence; "and to save your feelings, Mr Wentworth, and put it out o' folks's power to talk, the missis has been and took her away."

"To save my feelings!" said the Curate, with a laugh of contempt and vexation and impatience which it was not pleasant to hear. At another moment an accusation so ridiculous would have troubled him very little; but just now, with a sudden gleam of insight, he saw all the complications which might spring out of it to confuse further the path which he already felt to be so burdened. "I'll tell you what, Elsworthy," said Mr Wentworth; "if you don't want to make me your enemy instead of your friend, you'll send for this child instantly, without a day's delay. Tell your wife that my orders are that she should come back directly. My feelings! do the people in Carlingford think me an idiot, I wonder?" said the Curate, walking up and down to relieve his mind.

"I don't know, sir, I'm sure," said Elsworthy, who thought some answer was required of him. To tell the truth, Rosa's uncle felt a little spiteful. He did not see matters in exactly the same light as Mr Wentworth did. At the bottom of his heart, after all, lay a thrill of awakened ambition. Kings and princes had been known to marry far out of their degree for the sake of a beautiful face; and why a Perpetual Curate should be so much more lofty in his sentiments, puzzled and irritated the clerk of St Roque's. "There aint a worm but will turn when he's trod upon," said Mr Elsworthy to himself; and when his temper was roused, he became impertinent, according to the manner of his kind.

Mr Wentworth gave him a quick look, struck by the changed tone, but unable to make out whether it might not be stupidity. "You understand what I mean, Elsworthy," he said, with his loftiest air. "If Rosa does not return instantly, I shall be seriously offended. How you and your friends could be such utter idiots as to get up this ridiculous fiction, I can't conceive; but the sooner it's over the better. I expect to see her back to-morrow," said the Curate, taking up his bag and looking with an absolute despotism, which exasperated the man, in Elsworthy's face.

"You may be sure, sir, if she knows as you want to see her, she'll come," said the worm which had been trampled on; "and them as asks me why, am I to say it was the clergyman's orders?" said Elsworthy, looking up in his turn with a consciousness of power. "That means a deal, does that. I wouldn't take it upon me to say as much, not of myself; but if them's your orders, Mr Wentworth – "

"It appears to me, Elsworthy," said the Curate, who was inwardly in a towering passion, though outwardly calm enough, "either that you've been drinking or that you mean to be impertinent – which is it?"

"Me! – drinking, sir?" cried the shopkeeper. "If I had been one as was given that way, I wouldn't have attended to your interests not as I have done. There aint another man in Carlingford as has stood up for his clergyman as I have; and as for little Rosa, sir, most folks as had right notions would have inquired into that; but being as I trusted in you, I wasn't the one to make any talk. I've said to everybody as has asked me that there wasn't nothing in it but kindness. I don't say as I hadn't my own thoughts – for gentlemen don't go walking up Grange Lane with a pretty little creature like that all for nothing; but instead o' making anything of that, or leading of you on, or putting it in the child's head to give you encouragement, what was it I did but send her away afore you came home, that you mightn't be led into temptation! And instead of feelin' grateful, you say I've been drinking! It's a thing as I scorn to answer," said Mr Elsworthy; "there aint no need to make any reply – all Carlingford knows me; but as for Rosa, if it is understood plain between us that it's your wish, I aint the man to interfere," continued Rosa's guardian, with a smile which drove the Curate frantic; "but she hasn't got no father, poor thing, and it's my business to look after her; and I'll not bring her back, Mr Wentworth, unless it's understood between us plain."

Strong language, forcible, but unclerical, was on the Curate's lips, and it was only with an effort that he restrained himself. "Look here, Elsworthy," he said; "it will be better for you not to exasperate me. You understand perfectly what I mean. I repeat, Rosa must come back, and that instantly. It is quite unnecessary to explain to you why I insist upon this, for you comprehend it. Pshaw! don't let us have any more of this absurdity," he exclaimed, impatiently. "No more, I tell you. Your wife is not such a fool. Let anybody who inquires about me understand that I have come back, and am quite able to account for all my actions," said the Curate, shouldering his bag. He was just about leaving the shop when Elsworthy rushed after him in an access of alarm and repentance.

"One moment, sir," cried the shopkeeper; "there aint no offence, Mr Wentworth? I am sure there aint nobody in Carlingford as means better, or would do as much for his clergyman. One moment, sir; there was one thing I forgot to mention. Mr Wodehouse, sir, has been took bad. There was a message up a couple of hours ago to know when you was expected home. He's had a stroke, and they don't think as he'll get over it – being a man of a full 'abit of body," said Mr Elsworthy in haste, lest the Curate should break in on his unfinished speech, "makes it dangerous. I've had my fears this long time past."

"A stroke," said the Curate – "a fit, do you mean? When, and how? and, good heavens! to think that you have been wasting my time with rubbish, and knew this!" Mr Wentworth tossed down his travelling-bag again, and wiped his forehead nervously. He had forgotten his real anxiety in the irritation of the moment. Now it returned upon him with double force. "How did it come on?" he asked, "and when?" and stood waiting for the answer, with a world of other questions, which he could not put to Elsworthy, hanging on his lips.

"I have a deal of respect for that family, sir," said Elsworthy; "they have had troubles as few folks in Carlingford know of. How close they have kep' things, to be sure! – but not so close as them that has good memories, and can put two and two together, couldn't call to mind. My opinion, sir, if you believe me," said the clerk of St Roque's, approaching close to the Curate's ear, "is, that it's something concerning the son."

"The son!" said Mr Wentworth, with a troubled look. Then, after a pause, he added, as if his exclamation had been an oversight, "What son? has Mr Wodehouse a son?"

"To think as they should have been so close with the clergyman!" said Elsworthy, innocently; "though he aint no credit that they should talk of him. He's been gone out o' Carlingford nigh upon twenty year; but he aint dead for all that; and I'm told as he's been seen about Grange Lane this last spring. I am one as hears all the talk that's a-going on, being, as you might say, in a public position of life. Such a thing mightn't maybe come to your ears, sir?" he continued, looking inquisitively in Mr Wentworth's face; "but wherever he is, you may be sure it's something about him as has brought on this attack on the old man. It was last night as he was took so bad, and a couple of hours ago a message came up. Miss Wodehouse (as is the nicest lady in Grange Lane, and a great friend to me) had took a panic, and she was a-crying for you, the man said, and wouldn't take no denial. If I had known where you was to be found, I'd have sent word."

"Send down my bag to my house," said the Curate, hastily interrupting him. "Good-night – don't forget what I said about the other matter." Mr Wentworth went out of the shop with a disagreeable impression that Elsworthy had been examining his face like an inquisitor, and was already forming conclusions from what he had seen there. He went away hurriedly, with a great many vague fears in his mind. Mr Wodehouse's sudden illness seemed to him a kind of repetition and echo of the Squire's, and in the troubled and uncertain state of his thoughts, he got to confusing them together in the centre of this whirl of unknown disaster and perplexity. Perhaps even thus it was not all bitterness to the young man to feel his family united with that of Lucy Wodehouse. He went down Grange Lane in the summer darkness under the faint stars, full of anxiety and alarm, yet not without a thrill in his heart, a sweeter under-current of conscious agitation in the knowledge that he was hastening to her presence. Sudden breaks in his thoughts revealed her, as if behind a curtain, rising to receive him, giving him her hand, meeting his look with a smile; so that, on the whole, neither Gerald's distress, nor Jack's alarming call, nor his father's attack, nor Mr Wodehouse's illness, nor the general atmosphere of vexation and trouble surrounding his way, could succeed in making the young man totally wretched. He had this little stronghold of his own to retire into. The world could not fall to pieces so long as he continued with eager steps to devour the road which led to Mr Wodehouse's garden-door.

Before he had reached that goal, however, he met a group who were evidently returning from some little dinner in Grange Lane. Mr Wentworth took off his hat hastily in recognition of Mrs Morgan, who was walking by her husband's side, with a bright-coloured hood over her head instead of a bonnet. The Curate, who was a man of taste, could not help observing, even in the darkness, and amid all his preoccupations, how utterly the cherry-coloured trimmings of her head-dress were out of accordance with the serious countenance of the Rector's wife, who was a little heated with her walk. She was a good woman, but she was not fair to look upon; and it occurred to Mr Wentworth to wonder, if Lucy were to wait ten years for him, would the youthful grace dry and wither out of her like this! And then all at once another idea flashed upon his mind, without any wish of his. Like the unhappy lover in the ballad, he was suddenly aware of a temptation —

"How there looked him in the faceAn angel beautiful and bright,And how he knew it was a fiend."

"Of course the Rectory will go to Frank." He could not tell why at that moment the words rang into his ear with such a penetrating sound. That he hated himself for being able to think of such a possibility made no difference. It came darting and tingling into his mind like one of those suggestions of blasphemy which the devils whispered in Christian's ear as he went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He went on faster than ever to escape from it, scarcely observing that Mrs Morgan, instead of simply acknowledging his bow as she passed, stopped to shake hands, and to say how glad she was he had come back again. He thought of it afterwards with wonder and a strange gratitude. The Rector's wife was not like the conventional type of a pitying angel; and even had she been so, he had not time to recognise her at that moment as he went struggling with his demons to Mr Wodehouse's green door.

CHAPTER XXI

When the green door was opened, Mr Wentworth saw at a glance that there was agitation and trouble in the house. Lights were twinkling irregularly in the windows here and there, but the family apartment, the cheerful drawing-room, which generally threw its steady, cheerful blaze over the dark garden, shone but faintly with half-extinguished lights and undrawn curtains. It was evident at a glance that the room was deserted, and its usual occupants engaged elsewhere. "Master's very bad, sir," said the servant who opened the door; "the young ladies is both with him, and a hired nurse come in besides. The doctor don't seem to have no great hopes, but it will be a comfort to know as you have come back. Miss Wodehouse wanted you very bad an hour or two ago, for they thought as master was reviving, and could understand. I'll go and let them know you are here."

"Don't disturb them, unless I can be of use," said Mr Wentworth. The look of the house, and the atmosphere of distress and anxiety about it, chilled him suddenly. His visions and hopes seemed guilty and selfish as he went slowly up those familiar steps and into the house, over which the shadow of death seemed already lying. He went by himself into the forsaken drawing-room, where two neglected candles were burning feebly in a corner, and the wistful sky looking in as if to ask why the domestic temple was thus left open and uncared for. After the first moment he went hastily to the windows, and drew down the blinds in a kind of tender impatience. He could not bear that anything in the world, even her father's danger, should discompose the sweet, good order of the place where Lucy's image dwelt. There was a chair and her basket of work, and on the little table a book marked with pencil-marks, such as youthful readers love to make; and by degrees that breath of Lucy lingering in the silent room overcame its dreariness, and the painful sense of desertion which had struck him at first. He hovered about that corner where her usual place was, feeling in his heart that Lucy in trouble was dearer, if possible, than Lucy in happiness, and hung over her chair, with a mixture of reverence and tenderness and yearning, which could never be expressed in words. It was the divinest phase of love which was in his mind at the moment; for he was not thinking of himself, but of her, and of how he could succour and comfort her, and interpose his own true heart and life between her and all trouble. It was at this moment that Lucy herself entered the room; she came in softly, and surprised him in the overflowing of his heart. She held out her hand to him as usual, and smiled, perhaps less brightly, but that of course arose from the circumstances of the house; and her voice was very measured and steady when she spoke, less variable than of old. What was it she said? Mr Wentworth unconsciously left the neighbourhood of that chair over which he had been bending, which, to tell the truth, he had leaned his head upon, lover-like, and perhaps even kissed for her sake, five minutes before, and grew red and grew pale with a strange revulsion and tumult of feeling. He could not tell what the difference was, or what it meant. He only felt in an instant, with a sense of the change that chilled him to the heart, as if somehow a wall of ice had risen between them. He could see her through the transparent veil, and hear her speak, and perceive the smile which cast no warmth of reflection on him; but in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, everything in heaven and earth was changed. Lucy herself, to her own consciousness, trembled and faltered, and felt as if her voice and her looks must betray an amount of emotion which she would have died rather than show; but then Lucy had rehearsed this scene before, and knew all she intended by it; whereas upon the Curate, in his little flush and overflow of tenderness, it fell like a sudden earthquake, rending his fair edifice of happiness asunder, and casting him out into unexpected darkness. Sudden confusion, mortification, even a sense of injury and bitterness, came swelling over his heart as he set a chair for her as far away as possible from the corner in which he had been indulging such vain and unwarrantable dreams.

"It happened yesterday," said Lucy; "we have not been quite able to make out what was the cause; at least I have not been able to find it out. The clerks at the office say it was something about – but that does not matter," she went on, with her sweet politeness: "you don't care for the details. I sometimes fancy Mary knows more than she tells me, and I think you are in her confidence, Mr Wentworth. But I am not going to ask you any questions. The doctors say he is not suffering so much as he seems to be. It is terrible to see him lie there not knowing any of us," said Lucy, with a tremble in her voice.

"But you thought him better some time ago?" said the Curate, whose words choked him, and who could not endure to speak.

"Yes, about six o'clock," said Lucy, "he tried to speak, and put Mary in a great fright, I cannot tell why. Would you be good enough, Mr Wentworth," she went on hastily, with a strange mixture of earnestness and coldness, "if you know of anything she is keeping secret, to bid her tell me? I am able to bear anything there may be to bear – surely as well as she is, who has had no trouble," said Lucy, softly; and for a moment she wavered in her fixed composure, and the wall of ice moved as if it might fall.

"Nor you?" said the Curate, bending anxiously forward to look into her eyes. He was inexpressibly moved and agitated by the inference, which perhaps no listener less intensely concerned would have drawn from what Lucy said. He could not bear that she should have any trouble which he might not do something to relieve her of.

"Oh, no, nor I," said Lucy, quickly, and in that moment the softening of tone disappeared entirely. "Mary will be pleased to see you, Mr Wentworth. I will go and relieve her presently. Papa is asleep just now, and I was down-stairs giving some directions when you came in. I wanted to ask you to look after that poor woman at No. 10. She still keeps living on, and I have not been able to see her today. She misses me when I don't go," said Lucy, with a very little unconscious sigh. "Would you see her, please, to-morrow, if you have time?"

"Yes, certainly," said the Curate; and then there was a pause. "Is there nothing but this that you will let me do for you?" he asked, trusting to his looks to show the heart, which at this moment he was so much tempted to disclose to her, but dared not. And even in all her trouble Lucy was too much of a woman to neglect an opportunity so tempting.

"Thank you," she said. "Yes, there are those poor little Bertrams I was to have seen today – if you would be so very good as to send some one to them." Lucy lifted her eyes only as she ended this little speech. She had meant it cruelly, to be sure, and the arrow had gone home; but when she met the look that was fixed on her after her little shaft was fired, Lucy's resolution faltered. The tears came rushing to her eyes so hot and rapid that she could not restrain them. Some trouble of her own gave poignancy to that outbreak of filial grief. "Papa is so very ill!" she said, with a sob, as a scalding drop fell upon her hand; and then got up suddenly, afraid of the consequences. But the Curate, mortified, wounded, and disheartened as he was, had no comprehension either of the bitterness or the relenting that was in Lucy's thoughts. Rosa Elsworthy did not so much as occur to him in all his confused wonderings. He went after her to the door, too much perplexed and distressed to be indignant, as his first impulse was. She turned half round, with a tremulous little inclination of her head, which was all the good-night she could venture on. But the young man was too much disturbed to permit this.

"You will give me your hand, surely," he said, taking it, and holding it fast – a hand so different from that weak woman's hand that clung to Gerald without any force to hold him, in Wentworth Rectory. Those reluctant fingers, so firm and so soft, which scorned any struggle to withdraw themselves, but remained passive in his with a more effectual protest still against his grasp, wrung the very heart of the Perpetual Curate. He let them go with a sigh of vexation and disappointment. "Since that is all I can do, I will do it," he said – "that or anything else." She had left him almost before the words were said; and it was in a very disconsolate mood that he turned back into the deserted drawing-room. To tell the truth, he forgot everything else for the moment, asking himself what it could mean; and walked about stumbling over the chairs, feeling all his little edifice of personal consolation falling to the winds, and not caring much though everything else should follow. He was in this state of mind when Miss Wodehouse came to him, moving with noiseless steps, as everybody did in the stricken house.

"Oh, Mr Wentworth, I am so glad you have come," said that mild woman, holding out both her hands to him. She was too much agitated to say anything more. She was not equal to the emergency, or any emergency, but sank down on a chair, and relieved herself by tears, while the Curate stood anxiously by, waiting for what she had to say to him. "My father is very ill," she said, like Lucy, through her crying; "I don't know what good anybody can do; but thank God you've come home – now I shall feel I have somebody to apply to, whatever happens," said poor Miss Wodehouse, drying the eyes that were suffused again the next moment. Her helpless distress did not overwhelm the spectator, like Lucy's restrained trouble, but that was natural enough.

"Tell me about it," said Mr Wentworth; "the cause – can I guess at the cause? it is something about your – "

"Oh hush! don't say his name," cried Miss Wodehouse. "Yes, yes, what else could it be? Oh, Mr Wentworth, will you close the door, please, and see that there's no one about. I dare not speak to you till I am sure there's no one listening; not that I suspect anybody of listening," said the distressed woman; "but one never knows. I am afraid it is all my fault," she continued, getting up suddenly to see that the windows were closed. "I ought to have sent him away, instead of putting my trouble upon you; and now he is in greater danger than ever. Oh, Mr Wentworth, I meant it for the best; and now, unless you can help us, I don't know what I am to do."

"I cannot help you unless you tell me what is wrong," said the Curate, making her sit down, and drawing a chair close to her. He took her hand, by way of compelling her attention – a fair, soft hand, too, in its restless, anxious way. He held it in a brotherly grasp, trying to restore her to coherence, and induce her to speak.

"I don't know enough about business to tell you," she said. "He was in danger when I threw him upon your charity; and oh, Mr Wentworth, thank you, thank you a thousand times, for taking him in like a brother. If Lucy only knew! But I don't feel as if I dared to tell her – and yet I sometimes think I ought, for your – I mean for all our sakes. Yes, I will try to explain it if I can; but I can't – indeed I don't understand," cried the poor lady, in despair. "It is something about a bill – it was something about a bill before; and I thought I could soften papa, and persuade him to be merciful; but it has all turned to greater wretchedness and misery. The first one was paid, you know, and I thought papa might relent; – but – don't cast us off, Mr Wentworth – don't go and denounce him; you might, but you will not. It would be justice, I acknowledge," cried the weeping woman; "but there is something higher than justice even in this world. You are younger than I am, and so is Lucy; but you are better than me, you young people, and you must be more merciful too. I have seen you going among the poor people and among the sick, and I could not have done it; and you won't forsake me – oh, Mr Wentworth, you won't forsake me, when you know that my trouble is greater than I can bear!"