The Perpetual Curate

CHAPTER XXX

"I don't know what is the exact connection between tea and reformation," said Jack Wentworth, with a wonderful yawn. "When I consider that this is all on account of that stupid beast Wodehouse, I feel disposed to eat him. By the way, they have got a capital cook; I did not think such a cuisine was the sort of thing to be found in the bosom of one's family, which has meant boiled mutton up to this moment, to my uninstructed imagination. But the old ladies are in a state of excitement which, I presume, is unusual to them. It appears you have been getting into scrapes like other people, though you are a parson. As your elder brother, my dear Frank – "

"Look here," said the Perpetual Curate; "you want to ask about Wodehouse. I will answer your questions, since you seem to have some interest in him; but I don't speak of my private affairs to any but my intimate friends," said Mr Wentworth, who was not in a humour to be trifled with.

The elder brother shrugged his shoulders. "It is curious to remark the progress of the younger members of one's family," he said, reflectively. "When you were a little boy, you took your drubbings dutifully; but never mind, we've another subject in hand. I take an interest in Wodehouse, and so do you – I can't tell for what reason. Perhaps he is one of the intimate friends with whom you discuss your private affairs? but that is a matter quite apart from the subject. The thing is that he has to be taken care of – not for his own sake, as I don't need to explain to you," said Jack. "I hear the old fellow died today, which was the best thing he could have done, upon the whole. Perhaps you can tell me how much he had, and how he has left it? We may have to take different sides, and the fellow himself is a snob; but I should like to understand exactly the state of affairs between you and me as gentlemen," said the heir of the Wentworths. Either a passing spasm of compunction passed over him as he said the word, or it was the moon, which had just flung aside the last fold of cloud and burst out upon them as they turned back facing her. "When we know how the affair stands, we can either negotiate or fight," he added, puffing a volume of smoke from his cigar. "Really a very fine effect – that little church of yours comes well against that bit of sky. It looks like a Constable, or rather it would look like a Constable, thrusting up that bit of spire into the blue, if it happened to be daylight," said Jack, making a tube of his hand, and regarding the picture with great interest. Miss Dora at her window beheld the movement with secret horror and apprehension, and took it for some mysterious sign.

"I know nothing about Mr Wodehouse's property," said the Curate: "I wish I knew enough law to understand it. He has left no will, I believe;" and Mr Wentworth watched his brother's face with no small interest as he spoke.

"Very like a Constable," said Jack, still with his hands to his eyes. "These clouds to the right are not a bad imitation of some effects of his. I beg your pardon, but Constable is my passion. And so old Wodehouse has left no will? What has he left? some daughters? Excuse my curiosity," said the elder brother. "I am a man of the world, you know. If you like this other girl well enough to compromise yourself on her account (which, mind you, I think a great mistake), you can't mean to go in at the same time for that pretty sister, eh? It's a sort of sport I don't attempt myself – though it may be the correct thing for a clergyman, for anything I can tell to the contrary," said the tolerant critic.

Mr Wentworth had swallowed down the interruptions that rushed to his lips, and heard his brother out with unusual patience. After all, perhaps Jack was the only man in the world whom he could ask to advise him in such an emergency. "I take it for granted that you don't mean to insult either me or my profession," he said, gravely; "and, to tell the truth, here is one point upon which I should be glad of your help. I am convinced that it is Wodehouse who has carried away this unfortunate girl. She is a little fool, and he has imposed upon her. If you can get him to confess this, and to restore her to her friends, you will lay me under the deepest obligation," said the Perpetual Curate, with unusual energy. "I don't mind telling you that such a slander disables me, and goes to my heart." When he had once begun to speak on the subject, he could not help expressing himself fully; and Jack, who had grown out of acquaintance with the nobler sentiments, woke up with a slight start through all his moral being to recognise the thrill of subdued passion and scorn and grief which was in his brother's voice. Innocent Miss Dora, who knew no evil, had scarcely a doubt in her mind that Frank was guilty; but Jack, who scarcely knew what goodness was, acquitted his brother instantaneously, and required no other proof. Perhaps if he had been capable of any impression beyond an intellectual one, this little incident might, in Miss Dora's own language, have "done him good."

"So you have nothing to do with it?" he said, with a smile. "Wodehouse! but then the fellow hasn't a penny. I see some one skulking along under the walls that looks like him. Hist! Smith – Tom – what do they call you? We want you here," said Jack, upon whom the moon was shining full. When he stood in his evening coat and spotless breadth of linen, the heir of the Wentworths was ready to meet the eye of all the world. His shabby subordinate stopped short, with a kind of sullen admiration, to look at him. Wodehouse knew the nature of Jack Wentworth's pursuits a great deal better than his brother did, and that some of them would not bear much investigation; but when he saw him stand triumphant in gorgeous apparel, fearing no man, the poor rascal, whom everybody kicked at, rose superior to his own misfortunes. He had not made much of it in his own person, but that life was not altogether a failure which had produced Jack Wentworth. He obeyed his superior's call with instinctive fidelity, proud, in spite of himself, to be living the same life and sharing the same perils. When he emerged into the moonlight, his shaggy countenance looked excited and haggard. Notwithstanding all his experiences, he was not of a constitution which could deny nature. He had inflicted every kind of torture upon his father while living; but, notwithstanding, the fact of the death affected him. His eyes looked wilder than usual, and his face older and more worn, and he looked round him with a kind of clandestine skulking instinct as he came out of the shadow into the light.

This was the terrible conjunction which Miss Dora saw from her window. The anxious woman did not wait long enough to be aware that the Curate left the other two to such consultations as were inevitable between them, and went away very hastily to his own house, and to the work which still awaited him – "When the wicked man turneth away from the evil of his ways, and doeth that which is lawful and right." Mr Wentworth, when he came back to it, sat for about an hour over his text before he wrote a single syllable. His heart had been wrung that day by the sharpest pangs which can be inflicted upon a proud and generous spirit. He was disposed to be bitter against all the world – against the dull eyes that would not see, the dull ears that could shut themselves against all suggestions either of gratitude or justice. It appeared to him, on the whole, that the wicked man was every way the best off in this world, besides being wooed and besought to accept the blessings of the other. And the Curate was conscious of an irrepressible inclination to exterminate the human vermin who made the earth such an imbroglio of distress and misery; and was sore and wounded in his heart to feel how his own toils and honest purposes availed him nothing, and how all the interest and sympathy of bystanders went to the pretender. These sentiments naturally complicated his thoughts, and made composition difficult; not to say that they added a thrill of human feeling warmer than usual to the short and succinct sermon. It was not an emotional sermon, in the ordinary sense of the word; but it was so for Mr Wentworth, who carried to an extreme point the Anglican dislike for pulpit exaggeration in all forms. The Perpetual Curate was not a natural orator. He had very little of the eloquence which gave Mr Vincent so much success in the Dissenting connection during his short stay in Carlingford, which was a kind of popularity not much to the taste of the Churchman. But Mr Wentworth had a certain faculty of concentrating his thoughts into the tersest expression, and of uttering in a very few words, as if they did not mean anything particular, ideas which were always individual, and often of distinct originality – a kind of utterance which is very dear to the English mind. As was natural, there were but a limited amount of people able to find him out; but those who did so were rather fond of talking about the "restrained power" of the Curate of St Roque's.

Next morning was a glorious summer Sunday – one of those days of peace on which this tired old earth takes back her look of innocence, and deludes herself with thoughts of Eden. To be sure, there were tumults enough going on over her surface – vulgar merry-makings and noises, French drums beating, all kinds of discordant sounds going on here and there, by land and sea, under that tranquil impartial sun. But the air was very still in Carlingford, where you could hear the bees in the lime-blossoms as you went to church in the sunshine. All that world of soft air in which the embowered houses of Grange Lane lay beatified, was breathing sweet of the limes; but notwithstanding the radiance of the day, people were talking of other subjects as they came down under the shadow of the garden-walls to St Roque's. There was a great stream of people – greater than usual; for Carlingford was naturally anxious to see how Mr Wentworth would conduct himself in such an emergency. On one side of the way Mr Wodehouse's hospitable house, shut up closely, and turning all its shuttered windows to the light, which shone serenely indifferent upon the blank frames, stood silent, dumbly contributing its great moral to the human holiday; and on the other, Elsworthy's closed shop, with the blinds drawn over the cheerful windows above, where little Rosa once amused herself watching the passengers, interposed a still more dreadful discordance. The Carlingford people talked of both occurrences with composure as they went to St Roque's. They were sorry, and shocked, and very curious; but that wonderful moral atmosphere of human indifference and self-regard which surrounds every individual soul, kept their feelings quite within bounds. Most people wondered much what Mr Wentworth would say; whether he would really venture to face the Carlingford world; whether he would take refuge in a funeral sermon for Mr Wodehouse; or how it was possible for him to conduct himself under such circumstances. When the greater part of the congregation was seated, Miss Leonora Wentworth, all by herself, in her iron-grey silk, which rustled like a breeze along the narrow passage, although she wore no crinoline, went up to a seat immediately in front, close to Mr Wentworth's choristers, who just then came trooping in in their white surplices, looking like angels of unequal height and equivocal reputation. Miss Leonora placed herself in the front row of a little group of benches arranged at the side, just where the Curate's wife would have been placed, had he possessed such an appendage. She looked down blandly upon the many lines of faces turned towards her, accepting their inspection with perfect composure. Though her principles were Evangelical, Miss Leonora was still a Wentworth, and a woman. She had not shown any sympathy for her nephew on the previous night; but she had made up her mind to stand by him, without saying anything about her determination. This incident made a great impression on the mind of Carlingford. Most likely it interfered with the private devotions, from which a few heads popped up abruptly as she passed; but she was very devout and exemplary in her own person, and set a good example, as became the clergyman's aunt.

Excitement rose very high in St Roque's when Mr Wentworth came into the reading-desk, and Elsworthy, black as a cloud, became visible underneath. The clerk had not ventured to absent himself, nor to send a substitute in his place. Never, in the days when he was most devoted to Mr Wentworth, had Elsworthy been more determined to accompany him through every particular of the service. They had stood together in the little vestry, going through all the usual preliminaries, the Curate trying hard to talk as if nothing had happened, the clerk going through all his duties in total silence. Perhaps there never was a church service in Carlingford which was followed with such intense interest by all the eyes and ears of the congregation. When the sermon came, it took Mr Wentworth's admirers by surprise, though they could not at the moment make out what it was that puzzled them. Somehow the perverse manner in which for once the Curate treated that wicked man who is generally made so much of in sermons, made his hearers slightly ashamed of themselves. As for Miss Leonora, though she could not approve of his sentiments, the thought occurred to her that Frank was not nearly so like his mother's family as she had supposed him to be. When the service was over, she kept her place, steadily watching all the worshippers out, who thronged out a great deal more hastily than usual to compare notes, and ask each other what they thought. "I can't fancy he looks guilty," an eager voice here and there kept saying over and over. But on the whole, after they had got over the momentary impression made by his presence and aspect, the opinion of Carlingford remained unchanged; which was – that, notwithstanding all the evidence of his previous life, it was quite believable that Mr Wentworth was a seducer and a villain, and ought to be brought to condign punishment; but that in the mean time it was very interesting to watch the progress of this startling little drama; and that he himself, instead of merely being the Curate of St Roque's, had become a most captivating enigma, and had made church-going itself half as good as a play.

As for Miss Leonora, she waited for her nephew, and, when he was ready, took his arm and walked with him up Grange Lane to her own door, where they encountered Miss Wentworth and Miss Dora returning from church, and overwhelmed them with astonishment. But it was not about his own affairs that they talked. Miss Leonora did not say a word to her nephew about himself. She was talking of Gerald most of the time, and inquiring into all the particulars of the Squire's late "attack." And she would very fain have found out what Jack's motive was in coming to Carlingford; but as for Rosa Elsworthy and her concerns, the strong-minded woman ignored them completely. Mr Wentworth even went with her to lunch, on her urgent invitation; and it was from his aunts' house that he took his way to Wharfside, pausing at the green door to ask after the Miss Wodehouses, who were, John said, with solemnity, as well as could be expected. They were alone, and they did not feel equal to seeing anybody – even Mr Wentworth; and the Perpetual Curate, who would have given all he had in the world for permission to soothe Lucy in her sorrow, went away sadly from the hospitable door, which was now for the first time closed to him. He could not go to Wharfside, to the "district" through which they had so often gone together, about which they had talked, when all the little details discussed were sweet with the love which they did not name, without going deeper and deeper into that sweet shadow of Lucy which was upon his way wherever he went. He could not help missing her voice when the little choir, which was so feeble without her, sang the 'Magnificat,' which, somehow, Mr Wentworth always associated with her image. He read the same sermon to the Wharfside people which he had preached in St Roque's, and saw, with a little surprise, that it drew tears from the eyes of his more open-hearted hearers, who did not think of the proprieties. He could see their hands stealing up to their faces, and a great deal of persistent winking on the part of the stronger members of the congregation. At the close of the service Tom Burrows came up to the Curate with a downcast countenance. "Please, sir, if I've done ye injustice in my own mind, as went sore against the grain, and wouldn't have happened but for the women, I axes your pardon," said the honest bargeman, which was balm and consolation to Mr Wentworth. There was much talk in Prickett's Lane on the subject as he went to see the sick woman in No. 10. "There aint no doubt as he sets our duty before us clear," said one family mother; "he don't leave the men no excuse for their goings-on. He all but named the Bargeman's Arms out plain, as it was the place all mischief comes from." "If he'd have married Miss Lucy, like other folks, at Easter," said one of the brides whom Mr Wentworth had blessed, "such wicked stories couldn't never have been made up." "A story may be made up, or it mayn't be made up," said a more experienced matron; "but it can't be put out of the world unbeknowst no more nor a babby. I don't believe in stories getting up that aint true. I don't say as he don't do his duty; but things was different in Mr Bury's time, as was the real Rector; and, as I was a-saying, a tale's like a babby – it may come when it didn't ought to come, or when it aint wanted, but you can't do away with it, anyhow as you like to try." Mr Wentworth did not hear this dreary prediction as he went back again into the upper world. He was in much better spirits, on the whole. He had calmed his own mind and moved the hearts of others, which is to every man a gratification, even though nothing higher should be involved. And he had regained the moral countenance of Tom Burrows, which most of all was a comfort to him. More than ever he longed to go and tell Lucy as he passed by the green door. Tom Burrows's repentant face recalled Mr Wentworth's mind to the fact that a great work was doing in Wharfside, which, after all, was more worth thinking of than any tantalising vision of an impossible benefice. But this very thought, so consoling in itself, reminded him of all his vexations, of the public inquiry into his conduct which was hanging over him, and of his want of power to offer to Lucy the support and protection of which she might so soon stand in need; and having thus drawn upon his head once more his whole burden of troubles, Mr Wentworth went in to eat his dinner with what appetite he could.

The Perpetual Curate sat up late that night, as indeed was his custom. He sat late, hearing, as everybody does who sits up alone in a hushed and sleeping household, a hundred fantastic creaks and sounds which did not mean anything, and of which he took no notice. Once, indeed, when it was nearly midnight, he fancied he heard the garden-gate close hurriedly, but explained it to himself as people do when they prefer not to give themselves trouble. About one o'clock in the morning, however, Mr Wentworth could no longer be in any doubt that some stealthy step was passing his door and moving about the house. He was not alarmed, for Mrs Hadwin had occasional "attacks," like most people of her age; but he put down his pen and listened. No other sound was to be heard except this stealthy step, no opening of doors, nor whisper of voices, nor commotion of any kind; and after a while Mr Wentworth's curiosity was fully awakened. When he heard it again, he opened his door suddenly, and threw a light upon the staircase and little corridor into which his room opened. The figure he saw there startled him more than if it had been a midnight robber. It was only Sarah, the housemaid, white and shivering with terror, who fell down upon her knees before him. "Oh, Mr Wentworth, it aint my fault!" cried Sarah. The poor girl was only partially dressed, and trembled pitifully. "They'll say it was my fault; and oh, sir, it's my character I'm a-thinking of," said Sarah, with a sob; and the Curate saw behind her the door of Wodehouse's room standing open, and the moonlight streaming into the empty apartment. "I daren't go down-stairs to see if he's took anything," cried poor Sarah, under her breath; "there might be more of them about the place. But oh, Mr Wentworth, if Missis finds out as I gave him the key, what will become of me?" Naturally, it was her own danger which had most effect upon Sarah. Her full, good-humoured face was all wet and stained with crying, her lips quivering, her eyes dilated. Perhaps a thrill of private disappointment mingled with her dread of losing her character. "He used to tell me all as he was a-going to do," said Sarah; "but, oh, sir, he's been and gone away, and I daren't go down-stairs to look at the plate, and I'll never more sleep in quiet, if I was to live a century. It aint as I care for him, but it's the key and my character as I'm a-thinking of," cried the poor girl, bursting into audible sobs that could be restrained no longer. Mr Wentworth took a candle and went into Wodehouse's empty room, leaving her to recover her composure. Everything was cleared and packed up in that apartment. The little personal property he had, the shabby boots and worn habiliments, had disappeared totally; even the rubbish of wood-carving on his table was cleared away. Not a trace that he had been there a few hours ago remained in the place. The Curate came out of the room with an anxious countenance, not knowing what to make of it. And by this time Sarah's sobs had roused Mrs Hadwin, who stood, severe and indignant, at her own door in her nightcap, to know what was the matter. Mr Wentworth retired into his own apartments after a word of explanation, leaving the mistress and maid to fight it out. He himself was more disturbed and excited than he could have described. He could not tell what this new step meant, but felt instinctively that it denoted some new development in the tangled web of his own fortunes. Some hidden danger seemed to him to be gathering in the air over the house of mourning, of which he had constituted himself a kind of guardian. He could not sleep all night, but kept starting at every sound, thinking now that the skulking rascal, who was Lucy's brother, was coming back, and now that his departure was only a dream. Mr Wentworth's restlessness was not soothed by hearing all the night through, in the silence of the house, suppressed sobs and sounds of weeping proceeding from the attic overhead, which poor Sarah shared with her fellow-servant. Perhaps the civilities of "the gentleman" had dazzled Sarah, and been too much for her peace of mind; perhaps it was only her character, as the poor girl said. But as often as the Curate started from his uneasy and broken snatches of sleep, he heard the murmur of crying and consoling up-stairs. Outside the night was spreading forth those sweetest unseen glories of the starlight and the moonlight and the silence, which Nature reserves for her own enjoyment, when the weary human creatures are out of the way and at rest; – and Jack Wentworth slept the sleep of the righteous, uttering delicate little indications of the depth of his slumber, which it would have been profane to call by any vulgar name. He slept sweetly while his brother watched and longed for daylight, impatient for the morrow which must bring forth something new. The moonlight streamed full into the empty room, and made mysterious combinations of the furniture, and chased the darkness into corners which each held their secret. This was how Mrs Hadwin's strange lodger, whom nobody could ever make out, disappeared as suddenly as he had come, without any explanations; and only a very few people could ever come to understand what he had to do with the after-events which struck Grange Lane dumb, and turned into utter confusion all the ideas and conclusions of society in Carlingford.

CHAPTER XXXI

"I will do what I can for you," said Mr Morgan; "yours is a very hard case, as you say. Of course it would not do for me to give any opinion – but such a thing shall not occur in Carlingford, while I am here, without being looked into," said the Rector, with dignity; "of that you may be sure."

"I don't want no more nor justice," said Elsworthy – "no more nor justice. I'm a man as has always been respected, and never interfered with nobody as didn't interfere with me. The things I've stood from my clergyman, I wouldn't have stood from no man living. The way as he'd talk, sir, of them as was a deal better than himself! We was a happy family afore Mr Wentworth came nigh of us. Most folks in Carlingford knows me. There wasn't a more industrious family in Carlingford, though I say it as shouldn't, nor one as was more content, or took things more agreeable, afore Mr Wentworth come to put all wrong."