The Perpetual Curate Part 21

"Stop a moment," said Mr Proctor; "about this trial. Don't be affronted--I have nothing to do with it, you know; and Morgan means very well, though he's stupid enough. I should like to stand your friend, Wentworth; you know I would. I wish you'd yield to tell me all about it. If I were to call on you to-night after dinner--for perhaps it would put Mrs Hadwin out to give me a chop?"

The Curate laughed in spite of himself. "Fellows of All-Souls don't dine on chops," he said, unable to repress a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt; "but come at six, and you shall have something to eat, as good as I can give you. As for telling you all about it," said Mr Wentworth, "all the world is welcome to know as much as I know."

Mr Proctor laid his hand on the young man's arm, by way of soothing him. "We'll talk it all over," he said, confidentially; "both this affair, and--and the other. We have a good deal in common, if I am not much mistaken, and I trust we shall always be good friends," said the inexplicable man. His complexion heightened considerably after he had made this speech, which conveyed nothing but amazement to the mind of the Curate; and then he shook hands hastily, and hurried back again towards Grange Lane. If there had been either room or leisure in Frank Wentworth's mind for other thoughts, he might have laughed or puzzled over the palpable mystery; but as it was, he had dismissed the late Rector entirely from his mind before he reached the door of Mr Brown's room, where the lawyer was seated alone. John Brown, who was altogether a different type of man from Mr Waters, held out his hand to his visitor, and did not look at all surprised to see him. "I have expected a call from you," he said, "now that your old friend is gone, from whom you would naturally have sought advice in the circ.u.mstances.

Tell me what I can do for you;" and it became apparent to Mr Wentworth that it was his own affairs which were supposed to be the cause of his application. It may be supposed after this that the Curate stated his real object very curtly and clearly without any unnecessary words, to the unbounded amazement of the lawyer, who, being a busy man, and not a friend of the Wodehouses, had as yet heard nothing of the matter. Mr Brown, however, could only confirm what had been already said. "If it is really freehold property, and no settlement made, there cannot be any question about it," he said; "but I will see Waters to-morrow and make all sure, if you wish it; though he dares not mislead you on such a point. I am very sorry for the ladies, but I don't see what can be done for them," said Mr Brown; "and about yourself, Mr Wentworth?" Perhaps it was because of a certain look of genuine confidence and solicitude in John Brown's honest face that the Curate's heart was moved. For the first time he condescended to discuss the matter--to tell the lawyer, with whom indeed he had but a very slight acquaintance (for John Brown lived at the other end of Carlingford, and could not be said to be in society), all he knew about Rosa Elsworthy, and something of his suspicions. Mr Brown, for his part, knew little of the Perpetual Curate in his social capacity, but he knew about Wharfside, which was more to the purpose; and having himself been truly in love once in his life, commonplace as he looked, this honest man did not believe it possible that Lucy Wodehouse's representative could be Rosa Elsworthy's seducer--the two things looked incompatible to the straightforward vision of John Brown.

"I'll attend at their investigation," he said, with a smile, "which, if you were not particularly interested, you'd find not bad fun, Mr Wentworth. These private attempts at law are generally very amusing.

I'll attend and look after your interests; but you had better see that this Tom Wodehouse,--I remember the scamp--he used to be bad enough for anything,--don't give you the slip and get out of the way. Find out if you can where he has been living these two days. I'll attend to the other matter, too," the lawyer said, cheerfully, shaking hands with his new client; and the Curate went away with a vague feeling that matters were about to come right somehow, at which he smiled when he came to think of it, and saw how little foundation he had for such a hope. But his hands were full of business, and he had no time to consider his own affairs at this particular moment. It seemed to him a kind of profanity to permit Lucy to remain under the same roof with Wodehouse, even though he was her brother; and Mr Proctor's inquiries had stimulated his own feeling. There was a certain pleasure, besides, in postponing himself and his own business, however important, to her and her concerns; and it was with this idea that he proceeded to the house of his aunts, and was conducted to a little private sitting-room appropriated to the sole use of Miss Leonora, for whom he had asked.

As he pa.s.sed the door of the drawing-room, which was ajar, he glanced in, and saw his aunt Dora bending over somebody who wept, and heard a familiar voice pouring out complaints, the general sound of which was equally familiar, though he could not make out a word of the special subject. Frank was startled, notwithstanding his preoccupations, for it was the same voice which had summoned him to Wentworth Rectory which now poured out its lamentations in the Miss Wentworths'

drawing-room in Carlingford. Evidently some new complication had arisen in the affairs of the family. Miss Leonora was in her room, busy with the books of a Ladies' a.s.sociation, of which she was treasurer. She had a letter before her from the missionary employed by the society, which was a very interesting letter, and likely to make a considerable sensation when read before the next meeting. Miss Leonora was taking the cream off this piece of correspondence, enjoying at once itself and the impression it would make. She was slightly annoyed when her nephew came in to disturb her. "The others are in the drawing-room, as usual," she said. "I can't imagine what Lewis could be thinking of, to bring you here. Louisa's coming can make no difference to you."

"So Louisa has come? I thought I heard her voice. What has happened to bring Louisa here?" said the Curate, who was not sorry to begin with an indifferent subject. Miss Leonora shook her head and took up her letter.

"She is in the drawing-room," said the strong-minded aunt. "If you have no particular business with me, Frank, you had better ask herself: of course, if you want me, I am at your service--but otherwise I am busy, you see."

"And so am I," said Mr Wentworth, "as busy as a man can be whose character is at stake. Do you know I am to be tried to-morrow? But that is not what I came to ask you about."

"I wish you would _tell_ me about it," said Miss Leonora. She got up from her writing-table and from the missionary's letter, and abandoned herself to the impulses of nature. "I have heard disagreeable rumours.

I don't object to your reserve, Frank, but things seem to be getting serious. What does it mean?"

The Curate had been much braced in his inner man by his short interview with John Brown; that, and the representative position he held, had made a wonderful change in his feelings: besides, a matter which was about to become so public could not be ignored. "It means only that a good many people in Carlingford think me a villain," said Mr Wentworth: "it is not a flattering idea; and it seems to me, I must say, an illogical induction from the facts of my life. Still it is true that some people think so--and I am to be tried to-morrow. But in the mean time, something else has happened. I know you are a good woman, aunt Leonora. We don't agree in many things, but that does not matter. There are two ladies in Carlingford who up to this day have been rich, well off, well cared for, and who have suddenly lost all their means, their protector, even their home. They have no relations that I know of. One of them is good for any exertion that may be necessary," said the Curate, his voice softening with a far-off masculine suggestion as of tears; "but she is young--too young to contend with the world--and she is now suffering her first grief. The other is old enough, but not good for much--"

"You mean the two Miss Wodehouses?" said Miss Leonora. "Their father has turned out to be--bankrupt?--or something?--"

"Worse than bankrupt," said the Curate: "there is a brother who takes everything. Will you stand by them--offer them shelter?--I mean for a time. I don't know anybody I should care to apply to but you."

Miss Leonora paused and looked at her nephew. "First tell me what you have to do with them," she asked. "If there is a brother, he is their natural protector--certainly not you--unless there is something I don't know of. Frank, you know you can't marry," said Miss Leonora, with a little vehemence, once more looking in her nephew's face.

"No," said Frank, with momentary bitterness; "I am not likely to make any mistake about that--at present, at least. The brother is a reprobate of whom they know nothing. I have no right to consider myself their protector--but I am their friend at least," said the Curate, breaking off with again that softening in his voice. "They may have a great many friends, for anything I know; but I have confidence in you, aunt Leonora: you are not perhaps particularly sympathetic,"

he went on, with a laugh; "you don't condole with Louisa, for instance; but I could trust you with--"

"Lucy Wodehouse!" said Miss Leonora; "I don't dislike her at all, if she would not wear that ridiculous grey cloak; but young men don't take such an interest in young women without some reason for it. What are we to do for you, Frank?" said the strong-minded woman, looking at him with a little softness. Miss Leonora, perhaps, was not used to be taken into anybody's confidence. It moved her more than might have been expected from so self-possessed a woman. Perhaps no other act on the part of her nephew could have had so much effect, had he been able to pursue his advantage, upon the still undecided fate of Skelmersdale.

"Nothing," said the Curate. He met her eye very steadily, but she was too clear-sighted to believe that he felt as calmly as he looked.

"Nothing," he repeated again--"I told you as much before. I have been slandered here, and here I must remain. There are no parsonages or paradises for me."

With which speech Mr Wentworth shook hands with his aunt and went away. He left Miss Leonora as he had left her on various occasions--considerably confused in her ideas. She could not enjoy any longer the cream of the missionary's letter. When she tried to resume her reading, her attention flagged over it. After a while she put on her bonnet and went out, after a little consultation with her maid, who a.s.sisted her in the housekeeping department. The house was tolerably full at the present moment, but it was elastic. She was met at the green door of Mr Wodehouse's garden by the new proprietor, who stared excessively, and did not know what to make of such an apparition. "Jack Wentworth's aunt, by Jove!" he said to himself, and took off his hat, meaning to show her "a little civility." Miss Leonora thought him one of the attendants at the recent ceremonial, and pa.s.sed him without any ceremony. She was quite intent upon her charitable mission. Mr Wentworth's confidence was justified.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Mr Wentworth's day had been closely occupied up to this point. He had gone through a great many emotions, and transacted a good deal of business, and he went home with the comparative ease of a man whose anxieties are relieved, not by any real deliverance, but by the soothing influence of fatigue and the sense of something accomplished.

He was not in reality in a better position than when he left his house in the morning, bitterly mortified, injured, and wounded at the tenderest point. Things were very much the same as they had been, but a change had come over the feelings of the Perpetual Curate. He remembered with a smile, as he went down Grange Lane, that Mr Proctor was to dine with him, and that he had rashly undertaken to have something better than a chop. It was a very foolish engagement under the circ.u.mstances. Mr Wentworth was cogitating within himself whether he could make an appeal to the sympathies of his aunt's cook for something worthy of the sensitive palate of a Fellow of All-Souls, when all such thoughts were suddenly driven out of his mind by the apparition of his brother Gerald--perhaps the last man in the world whom he could have expected to see in Carlingford. Gerald was coming up Grange Lane in his meditative way from Mrs Hadwin's door. To look at him was enough to reveal to any clear-sighted spectator the presence of some perpetual argument in his mind. Though he had come out to look for Frank, his eyes were continually forsaking his intention, catching spots of lichen on the wall and clumps of herbage on the roadside. The long discussion had become so familiar to him, that even now, when his mind was made up, he could not relinquish the habit which possessed him. When he perceived Frank, he quickened his steps. They met with only such a modified expression of surprise on the part of the younger brother as was natural to a meeting of English kinsfolk. "I heard Louisa's voice in my aunt's drawing-room," said Frank; "but, oddly enough, it never occurred to me that you might have come with her;" and then Gerald turned with the Curate. When the ordinary family questions were asked and answered, a silence ensued between the two. As for Frank, in the multiplicity of his own cares, he had all but forgotten his brother; and Gerald's mind, though full of anxiety, had something of the calm which might be supposed to subdue the senses of a dying man. He was on the eve of a change, which appeared to him almost as great as death; and the knowledge of that gave him a curious stillness of composure--almost a reluctance to speak. Strangely enough, each brother at this critical moment felt it necessary to occupy himself with the affairs of the other, and to postpone the consideration of his own.

"I hope you have changed your mind a little since we last met," said Frank; "your last letter--"

"We'll talk of that presently," said the elder brother; "in the mean time I want to know about _you_. What is all this? My father is in a great state of anxiety. He does not seem to have got rid of his fancy that you were somehow involved with Jack--and Jack is here," said Gerald, with a look which betokened some anxiety on his own part. "I wish you would give me your confidence. Right or wrong, I have come to stand by you, Frank," said the Rector of Wentworth, rather mournfully.

He had been waiting at Mrs Hadwin's for the last two hours. He had seen that worthy woman's discomposed looks, and felt that she did not shake her head for nothing. Jack had been the bugbear of the family for a long time past. Gerald was conscious of adding heavily at the present moment to the Squire's troubles. Charley was at Malta, in indifferent health; all the others were boys. There was only Frank to give the father a little consolation; and now Frank, it appeared, was most deeply compromised of all; no wonder Gerald was sad. And then he drew forth the anonymous letter which had startled all the Wentworths on the previous night. "This is written by somebody who hates you,"

said the elder brother; "but I suppose there must be some meaning in it. I wish you would be frank with me, and tell me what it is."

This appeal had brought them to Mrs Hadwin's door, which the Curate opened with his key before he answered his brother. The old lady herself was walking in the garden in a state of great agitation, with a shawl thrown over the best cap, which she had put on in honour of the stranger. Mrs Hadwin's feelings were too much for her at that moment. Her head was nodding with the excitement of age, and injured virtue trembled in every line of her face. "Mr Wentworth, I cannot put up with it any longer; it is a thing I never was used to," she cried, as soon as the Curate came within hearing. "I have shut my eyes to a great deal, but I cannot bear it any longer. If I had been a common lodging-house keeper, I could not have been treated with less respect; but to be outraged--to be insulted--"

"What is the matter, Mrs Hadwin?" said Mr Wentworth, in dismay.

"Sir," said the old lady, who was trembling with pa.s.sion, "you may think it no matter to turn a house upside down as mine has been since Easter; to bring all sorts of disreputable people about--persons whom a gentlewoman in my position ought never to have heard of. I received your brother into my house," cried Mrs Hadwin, turning to Gerald, "because he was a clergyman and I knew his family, and hoped to find him one whose principles I could approve of. I have put up with a great deal, Mr Wentworth, more than I could tell to anybody. I took in his friend when he asked me, and gave him the spare room, though it was against my judgment. I suffered a man with a beard to be seen stealing in and out of my house in the evening, as if he was afraid to be seen. You gentlemen may not think much of that, but it was a terrible thing for a lady in my position, unprotected, and not so well off as I once was. It made my house like a lodging-house, and so my friends told me; but I was so infatuated I put up with it all for Mr Frank's sake. But there _is_ a limit," said the aggrieved woman. "I would not have believed it--I _could_ not have believed it of you--not whatever people might say: to think of that abandoned disgraceful girl coming openly to my door--"

"Good heavens!" cried the Curate: he seized Mrs Hadwin's hand, evidently forgetting everything else she had said. "What girl?--whom do you mean? For heaven's sake compose yourself and answer me. Who was it? Rosa Elsworthy? This is a matter of life and death for me," cried the young man. "Speak quickly: when was it?--where is she? For heaven's sake, Mrs Hadwin, speak--"

"Let me go, sir!" cried the indignant old lady; "let me go this instant--this is insult upon insult. I appeal to you, Mr Gerald--to think I should ever be supposed capable of encouraging such a horrid shameless--! How dare you--how dare you name such a creature to me?"

exclaimed Mrs Hadwin, with hysterical sobs. "If it were not for your family, you should never enter my house again. Oh, thank you, Mr Gerald Wentworth--indeed I am not able to walk. I am sure I don't want to grieve you about your brother--I tried not to believe it--I tried as long as I could not to believe it--but you hear how he speaks. Do you think, sir, I would for a moment permit such a creature to enter my door?" she cried again, turning to Frank Wentworth as she leaned upon his brother's arm.

"I don't know what kind of a creature the poor girl is," said the Curate; "but I know that if you had taken her in, it would have saved me much pain and trouble. Tell me, at least, when she came, and who saw her--or if she left any message? Perhaps Sarah will tell me," he said, with a sigh of despair, as he saw that handmaiden hovering behind. Sarah had been a little shy of Mr Wentworth since the night Wodehouse disappeared. She had betrayed herself to the Curate, and did not like to remember the fact. Now she came up with a little toss of her head and a sense of equality, primed and ready with her reply.

"I hope I think more of myself than to take notice of any sich," said Sarah; but her instincts were more vivid than those of her mistress, and she could not refrain from particulars. "Them as saw her now, wouldn't see much in her; I never see such a changed creature," said Sarah; "not as I ever thought anything of her looks! a bit of a shawl dragged around her, and her eyes as if they would jump out of her head. Laws! she didn't get no satisfaction here," said the housemaid, with a little triumph.

"Silence, Sarah!" said Mrs Hadwin; "that is not a way to speak to your clergyman. I'll go in, Mr Wentworth, please--I am not equal to so much agitation. If Mr Frank will come indoors, I should be glad to have an explanation--for this sort of thing cannot go on," said the old lady.

As for the Curate he did not pay the least attention either to the disapproval or the impertinence.

"At what time did she come?--which way did she go?--did she leave any message?" he repeated; "a moment's common-sense will be of more use than all this indignation. It is of the greatest importance to me to see Rosa Elsworthy. Here's how it is, Gerald," said the Curate, driven to his wit's end; "a word from the girl is all I want to make an end of all this--this disgusting folly--and you see how I am thwarted.

Perhaps they will answer _you_. When did she come?--did she say anything?" he cried, turning sharply upon Sarah, who, frightened by Mr Wentworth's look, and dismayed to see her mistress moving away, and to feel herself alone opposed to him, burst at last into an alarmed statement.

"Please, sir, it aint no fault of mine," said Sarah; "it was Missis as saw her. She aint been gone not half an hour. It's all happened since your brother left. She come to the side-door; Missis wouldn't hear nothing she had got to say, nor let her speak. Oh, Mr Wentworth, don't you go after her!" cried the girl, following him to the side-door, to which he rushed immediately. Not half an hour gone! Mr Wentworth burst into the lane which led up to Grove Street, and where there was not a soul to be seen. He went back to Grange Lane, and inspected every corner where she could have hid herself. Then, after a pause, he walked impetuously up the quiet road, and into Elsworthy's shop. Mrs Elsworthy was there alone, occupying her husband's place, who had gone as usual to the railway for the evening papers. She jumped up from the high stool she was seated on when the Curate entered. "Good gracious, Mr Wentworth!" cried the frightened woman, and instinctively called the errand-boy, who was the only other individual within hearing. She was unprotected, and quite unable to defend herself if he meant anything; and it was impossible to doubt that there was meaning of the most serious and energetic kind in Mr Wentworth's face.

"Has Rosa come back?" he asked. "Is she here? Don't stare at me, but speak. Has she come back? I have just heard that she was at my house half an hour ago: have you got her safe?"

It was at this moment that Wodehouse came lounging in, with his cigar appearing in the midst of his beard, and a curious look of self-exhibition and demonstration in his general aspect. When the Curate, hearing the steps, turned round upon him, he fell back for a moment, not expecting such an encounter. Then the vagabond recovered himself, and came forward with the swagger which was his only alternative.

"I thought you weren't on good terms here," said Wodehouse; "who are you asking after? It's a fine evening, and they don't seem up to much in my house. I have asked Jack Wentworth to the Blue Boar at seven--will you come? I don't want to bear any grudge. I don't know if they can cook anything fit to be eaten in my house. It wasn't me you were asking after?" The fellow came and stood close, shoulder to shoulder, by the Perpetual Curate. "By Jove, sir! I've as good a right here as you--or anywhere," he muttered, as Mr Wentworth withdrew from him. He had to say it aloud to convince himself of the fact; for it was hard, after being clandestine for half a lifetime, to move about freely in the daylight.

As for Mr Wentworth, he fixed his eyes full on the new-comer's face.

"I want to know if Rosa has come home," he repeated, in the clearest tones of his clear voice. "I am told she called at Mrs Hadwin's half an hour ago. Has she come back?"

He scarcely noticed Mrs Elsworthy's answer, for, in the mean time, the cigar dropped out of Wodehouse's beard, out of his fingers. He made an involuntary step back out of the Curate's way. "By Jove!" he exclaimed to himself--the news was more important to him than to either of the others. After a minute he turned his back upon them, and kicked the cigar which he had dropped out into the street with much blundering and unnecessary violence--but turned round and stopped short in this occupation as soon as he heard Mrs Elsworthy's voice.

"She hasn't come here," said that virtuous woman, sharply. "I've give in to Elsworthy a deal, but I never said I'd give in to take her back.

She's been and disgraced us all; and she's not a drop's blood to me,"

said Mrs Elsworthy. "Them as has brought her to this pa.s.s had best look after her; I've washed my hands of Rosa, and all belonging to her. She knows better than to come here."

"Who's speaking of Rosa?" said Elsworthy, who just then came in with his bundle of newspapers from the railway. "I might have know'd as it was Mr Wentworth. Matters is going to be cleared, sir, between me and you. If you was going to make a proposal, I aint revengeful; and I'm open to any arrangement as is honourable, to save things coming afore the public. I've been expecting of it. You may speak free, sir. You needn't be afraid of me."

"Fool!" said the Curate, hotly, "your niece has been seen in Carlingford; she came to my door, I am told, about an hour ago. Give up this folly, and let us make an effort to find her. I tell you she came to my house--"

"In course, sir," said Elsworthy; "it was the most naturalest place for her to go. Don't you stand upon it no longer, as if you could deceive folks. It will be your ruin, Mr Wentworth--you know that as well as I do. I aint no fool but I'm open to a honourable proposal, I am. It'll ruin you--ay, and I'll ruin you," cried Rosa's uncle, hoa.r.s.ely--"if you don't change your mind afore to-morrow. It's your last chance, if you care for your character, is to-night."

Mr Wentworth did not condescend to make any answer. He followed Wodehouse, who had shuffled out after his cigar, and stopped him on the step. "I wonder if it is any use appealing to your honour," he said. "I suppose you were a gentleman once, and had the feelings of--"