Next week was Passion Week, and full of occupation. Even if it had been
consistent either with Mr Wentworth's principles or Lucy's to introduce
secular affairs into so holy a season, they had not time or opportunity,
as it happened, which was perhaps just as well; for otherwise the
premonitory thrill of expectation which had disturbed Lucy's calm, and
the bitter exasperation against himself and his fate with which Mr
Wentworth had discovered that he dared not say anything, might have
caused an estrangement between them. As it was, the air was thundery and
ominous through all the solemn days of the Holy Week. A consciousness as
of something about to happen overshadowed even the "district," and
attracted the keen observation of the lively spectators at Wharfside.
They were not greatly up in matters of doctrine, nor perhaps did they
quite understand the eloquent little sermon which the Perpetual Curate
gave them on Good Friday in the afternoon, between his own services, by
way of impressing upon their minds the awful memories of the day; but
they were as skilful in the variations of their young evangelist's
looks, and as well qualified to decide upon the fact that there was "a
something between" him and Miss Lucy Wodehouse, as any practised
observer in the higher ranks of society. Whether the two had "'ad an
unpleasantness," as, Wharfside was well aware, human creatures under
such circumstances are liable to have, the interested community could
not quite make out; but that something more than ordinary was going on,
and that the prettiest of all the "Provident ladies" had a certain
preoccupation in her blue eyes, was a fact perfectly apparent to
that intelligent society. And, indeed, one of the kinder matrons in
Prickett's Lane had even ventured so far as to wish Miss Lucy "a 'appy
weddin' when the time comes." "And there's to be a sight o' weddings
this Easter," had added another, who was somewhat scandalised by the
flowers in the bonnet of one of the brides-elect, and proceeded to say
so in some detail. "But Miss Lucy won't wear no bonnet; the quality goes
in veils: and there never was as full a church as there will be to see
it, wishing you your 'ealth and 'appiness, ma'am, as aint no more nor
you deserve, and you so good to us poor folks." All which felicitations
and inquiries had confused Lucy, though she made her way out of them
with a self-possession which amazed her sister.
"You see what everybody thinks, dear," said that gentle woman, when
they had made their escape.
"Oh, Mary, how can you talk of such things at such a time?" the young
Sister of Mercy had answered once more, turning those severe eyes of
youthful devotion upon her troubled elder sister, who, to tell the
truth, not having been brought up to it, as she said, felt much the
same on Easter Eve as at other times of her life; and thus once more
the matter concluded. As for Mr Wentworth, he was much occupied on
that last day of the Holy Week with a great many important matters on
hand. He had not seen the Wodehouses since the Good Friday evening
service, which was an interval of about twenty hours, and had just
paused, before eating his bachelor's dinner, to ponder whether it
would be correct on that most sacred of vigils to steal away for half
an hour, just to ask Lucy if she thought it necessary that he should
see the sick woman at No. 10 Prickett's Lane before the morning.
It was while he was pondering this matter in his mind that Mr
Wentworth's heart jumped to his throat upon receipt, quite suddenly,
without preparation, of the following note:--
"MY DEAREST BOY,--Your aunts Cecilia, Leonora, and I have just arrived
at this excellent inn, the Blue Boar. Old Mr Shirley at Skelmersdale
is in a very bad way, poor man, and I thought the _very best_ thing I
could do in my dearest Frank's _best_ interests, was to persuade them
to make you _quite_ an _unexpected visit_, and see everything for
themselves. I am in a terrible fright now lest I should have done
wrong; but my dear, dear boy knows it is always his interest that I
have at heart; and Leonora is so intent on having a _real gospel
minister_ at Skelmersdale, that she _never_ would have been content
with anything less than hearing you with her own ears. I hope and
trust in Providence that you don't intone like poor Gerald. And oh,
Frank, my dear boy, come directly and dine with us, and don't fly in
your aunt Leonora's face, and tell me I haven't been imprudent. I
thought it would be best to take you unawares when you had everything
prepared, and when we should see you just as you always are; for I am
convinced Leonora and you only want to see more of each other to
understand each other perfectly. Come, my dearest boy, and give a
little comfort to your loving and anxious
"AUNT DORA."
Mr Wentworth sat gazing blankly upon this horrible missive for some
minutes after he had read it, quite unaware of the humble presence of
the maid who stood asking, Please was she to bring up dinner? When he
came to himself, the awful "No!" with which he answered that alarmed
handmaiden almost drove her into hysterics as she escaped down-stairs.
However, Mr Wentworth immediately put his head out at the door and
called after her, "I can't wait for dinner, Sarah; I am suddenly called
out, and shall dine where I am going. Tell Cook," said the young parson,
suddenly recollecting Lucy's client, "to send what she has prepared for
me, if it is very nice, to No. 10 Prickett's Lane. My boy will take it;
and send him off directly, please," with which last commission the young
man went up despairingly to his bedroom to prepare himself for this
interview with his aunts. What was he to do? Already before him, in
dreadful prophetic vision, he saw all three seated in one of the
handsome open benches in St Roque's, looking indescribable horrors at
the crown of spring lilies which Lucy's own fingers were to weave for
the cross above the altar, and listening to the cadence of his own manly
tenor as it rang through the perfect little church of which he was so
proud. Yes, there was an end of Skelmersdale, without any doubt or
question now; whatever hope there might have been, aunt Dora had settled
the matter by this last move of hers--an end to Skelmersdale, and an end
of Lucy. Perhaps he had better try not to see her any more; and the poor
young priest saw that his own face looked ghastly as he looked at it in
the glass. It gave him a little comfort to meet the boy with a bundle
pinned up in snowy napkins, from which a grateful odour ascended,
bending his steps to Prickett's Lane, as he himself went out to meet his
fate. It was a last offering to that beloved "district" with which the
image of his love was blended; but he would have given his dinner to
Lucy's sick woman any day. To-night it was a greater sacrifice that was
to be required of him. He went mournfully and slowly up Grange Lane,
steeling himself for the encounter, and trying to forgive aunt Dora in
his heart. It was not very easy. Things might have turned out just the
same without any interference--that was true; but to have it all brought
on in this wanton manner by a kind foolish woman, who would wring her
hands and gaze in your face, and want to know, Oh! did you think it was
her fault? after she had precipitated the calamity, was very hard; and
it was with a very gloomy countenance, accordingly, that the Curate of
St Roque's presented himself at the Blue Boar.
The Miss Wentworths were in the very best sitting-room which the Blue
Boar contained--the style in which they travelled, with a man and two
maids, was enough to secure that; and the kitchen of that respectable
establishment was doing its very best to send up a dinner worthy of "a
party as had their own man to wait." The three ladies greeted their
nephew with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The eldest, Miss Wentworth,
from whom he took his second name Cecil, did not rise from her chair,
but nevertheless kissed him in an affectionate dignified way when he
was brought to her. As for aunt Dora, she ran into her dear Frank's
arms, and in the very moment of that embrace whispered in his ear the
expression of her anxiety, and the panic which always followed those
rash steps which she was in the habit of taking. "Oh, my dear, I hope
you don't think I'm to blame," she said, with her lips at his ear, and
gained but cold comfort from the Curate's face. The alarming member of
the party was Miss Leonora. She rose and made two steps forward to
meet the unfortunate young man. She shook both his hands cordially,
and said she was very glad to see him, and hoped he was well. She was
the sensible sister of the three, and no doubt required all the sense
she had to manage her companions. Miss Wentworth, who had been very
pretty in her youth, was now a beautiful old lady, with snow-white
hair and the most charming smile; and Miss Dora, who was only fifty,
retained the natural colour of her own scanty light-brown locks, which
wavered in weak-minded ringlets over her cheeks; but Miss Leonora was
iron-grey, without any complexion in particular, and altogether a
harder type of woman. It was she who held in her hands the fate of
Skelmersdale and of Frank Wentworth. Her terrible glance it was which
he had imagined gleaming fierce upon his lilies--Lucy's lilies, his
Easter decorations. It was by her side the alarmed Curate was made to
sit down. It was she who took the foot of the table, and was the
gentleman of the house. Her voice was of that class of voice which may
be politely called a powerful contralto. Every way she was as alarming
a critic as ever was encountered by a Perpetual Curate, or any other
young man in trouble. Mr Wentworth said feebly that this was a very
unexpected pleasure, as he met his aunt Leonora's eye.
"I hope it _is_ a pleasure," said that penetrating observer. "To tell
the truth, I did not expect it would be; but your aunt Dora thought so,
and you know, when she sets her heart on anything, nobody can get any
peace. Not that your aunt Cecilia and I would have come on that account,
if we had not wished, for many reasons, to have some conversation with
you, and see how you are getting on."
"Quite so, Leonora," said Miss Wentworth, smiling upon her nephew, and
leaning back in her chair.
Then there was a little pause; for, after such a terrible address, it
was not to be expected that the poor man, who understood every word of
it, could repeat his commonplace about the unlooked-for pleasure. Miss
Dora of course seized the opportunity to rush in.
"We have been hearing such delightful things about you, my dear, from
the people of the house. Leonora is so pleased to hear how you are
labouring among the people, and doing your Master's work. We take all
the happiness to ourselves, because, you know, you are _our_ boy,
Frank," said the anxious aunt, all her thin ringlets, poor lady,
trembling with her eagerness to make everything comfortable for her
favourite; "and we have come, you know, specially to hear you on Easter
Sunday in your own church. I am looking forward to a great treat: to
think I should never have heard you, though it is so long since you were
ordained! None of us have ever heard you--not even Leonora; but it is
such a pleasure to us all to know you are so much liked in Carlingford,"
cried the troubled woman, growing nervous at sight of the unresponsive
quiet around her. Miss Leonora by no means replied to the covert
appeals thus made to her. She left her nephew and her sister to keep up
the conversation unassisted; and as for Miss Wentworth, conversation was
not her forte.
"I'm afraid, aunt, you will not _hear_ anything worth such a long
journey," said Mr Wentworth, moved, like a rash young man as he was, to
display his colours at once, and cry no surrender. "I don't think an
Easter Sunday is a time for much preaching; and the Church has made such
ample provision for the expression of our sentiments. I am more of a
humble priest than an ambitious preacher," said the young man, with
characteristic youthful pretence of the most transparent kind. He looked
in Miss Leonora's face as he spoke. He knew the very name of priest was
an offence in its way to that highly Evangelical woman; and if they were
to come to single combat, better immediately than after intolerable
suspense and delay.
"Perhaps, Dora, you will postpone your raptures about Frank's
sermon--which may be a very indifferent sermon, as he says, for anything
we can tell--till after dinner," said Miss Leonora. "We're all very glad
to see him; and he need not think any little ill-tempered speeches he
may make will disturb me. I daresay the poor boy would be glad to hear
of some of the people belonging to him instead of all that nonsense.
Come to dinner, Frank. Take the other side of the table, opposite Dora;
and now that you've said grace, I give you full leave to forget that
you're a clergyman for an hour at least. We were down at the old Hall a
week ago, and saw your father and the rest. They are all well; and the
last boy is rather like you, if you will think that any compliment. Mrs
Wentworth is pleased, because you are one of the handsome ones, you
know. Not much fear of the Wentworths dying out of the country yet
awhile. Your father is getting at his wit's end, and does not know what
to do with Cuthbert and Guy. Three sons are enough in the army, and two
at sea; and I rather think it's as much as we can stand," continued Miss
Leonora, not without a gleam of humour in her iron-grey eyes, "to have
two in the Church
."
"That is as it may happen," said the Perpetual Curate, with a little
spirit. "If the boys are of my way of thinking, they will consider the
Church the highest of professions; but Guy and Cuthbert must go to
Australia, I suppose, like most other people, and take their chance--no
harm in that."
"Not a bit of harm," said the rich aunt; "they're good boys enough,
and I daresay they'll get on. As for Gerald, if you have any influence
with your brother, I think he's in a bad way. I think he has a bad
attack of Romishness coming on. If you are not in that way yourself,"
said Miss Leonora, with a sharp glance, "I think you should go and see
after Gerald. He is the sort of man who would do anything foolish, you
know. He doesn't understand what prudence means. Remember, I believe
he is a good Christian all the same. It's very incomprehensible; but
the fact is, a man may be a very good Christian, and have the least
quality of sense that is compatible with existence. I've seen it over
and over again. Gerald's notions are idiocy to me," said the sensible
but candid woman, shrugging her shoulders; "but I can't deny that he's
a good man, for all that."
"He is the best man I ever knew," said young Wentworth, with
enthusiasm.
"Quite so, Frank," echoed aunt Cecilia, with her sweet smile: it was
almost the only conversational effort Miss Wentworth ever made.
"But it is so sad to see how he's led away," said Miss Dora; "it is all
owing to the bad advisers young men meet with at the universities; and
how can it be otherwise as long as tutors and professors are chosen just
for their learning, without any regard to their principles? What is
Greek and Latin in comparison with a pious guide for the young? We
would not have to feel frightened, as we do so often, about young
men's principles," continued aunt Dora, fixing her eyes with warning
significance on her nephew, and trying hard to open telegraphic
communications with him, "if more attention was paid at the universities
to give them sound guidance in their studies. So long as you are sound
in your principles, there is no fear of you," said the timid diplomatist,
trying to aid the warning look of her eyes by emphasis and inflection.
Poor Miss Dora! it was her unlucky fate, by dint of her very exertions
in smoothing matters, always to make things worse.
"He would be a bold man who would call those principles unsound which
have made my brother Gerald what he is," said, with an affectionate
admiration that became him, the Curate of St Roque's.
"It's a slavish system, notwithstanding Gerald," said Miss Leonora,
with some heat; "and a false system, and leads to Antichrist at the
end and nothing less. Eat your dinner, Frank--we are not going to
argue just now. We expected to hear that another of the girls was
engaged before we came away, but it has not occurred yet. I don't
approve of young men dancing about a house for ever and ever, unless
they mean something. Do you?"
Mr Wentworth faltered at this question; it disturbed his composure
more than anything that had preceded it. "I--really I don't know," he
said, after a pause, with a sickly smile--of which all three of his
aunts took private notes, forming their own conclusions. It was, as
may well be supposed, a very severe ordeal which the poor young man
had to go through. When he was permitted to say good-night, he went
away with a sensation of fatigue more overpowering than if he had
visited all the houses in Wharfside. When he passed the green door,
over which the apple-tree rustled in the dark, it was a pang to his
heart. How was he to continue to live--to come and go through that
familiar road--to go through all the meetings and partings, when this
last hopeless trial was over, and Lucy and he were swept apart as if
by an earthquake? If his lips were sealed henceforward, and he never
was at liberty to say what was in his heart, what would she think of
him? He could not fly from his work because he lost Skelmersdale; and
how was he to bear it? He went home with a dull bitterness in his
mind, trying, when he thought of it, to quiet the aching pulses which
throbbed all over him, with what ought to have been the hallowed
associations of the last Lenten vigil. But it was difficult, throbbing
as he was with wild life and trouble to the very finger-points, to get
himself into the shadow of that rock-hewn grave, by which, according
to his own theory, the Church should be watching on this Easter Eve.
It was hard just then to be bound to that special remembrance. What he
wanted at this moment was no memory of one hour, however memorable or
glorious, not even though it contained the Redeemer's grave, but the
sense of a living Friend standing by him in the great struggle, which
is the essential and unfailing comfort of a Christian's life.
Next morning he went to church with a half-conscious, youthful sense of
martyrdom, of which in his heart he was half ashamed. St Roque's was
very fair to see that Easter morning. Above the communion-table, with
all its sacred vessels, the carved oaken cross of the reredos was
wreathed tenderly with white fragrant festoons of spring lilies, sweet
Narcissus of the poets; and Mr Wentworth's choristers made another white
line, two deep, down each side of the chancel. The young Anglican took
in all the details of the scene on his way to the reading-desk as the
white procession ranged itself in the oaken stalls. At that moment--the
worst moment for such a thought--it suddenly flashed over him that,
after all, a wreath of spring flowers or a chorister's surplice was
scarcely worth suffering martyrdom for. This horrible suggestion, true
essence of an unheroic age, which will not suffer a man to be absolutely
sure of anything, disturbed his prayer as he knelt down in silence to
ask God's blessing. Easter, to be sure, was lovely enough of itself
without the garland, and Mr Wentworth knew well enough that his
white-robed singers were no immaculate angel-band. It was Satan himself,
surely, and no inferior imp, who shot that sudden arrow into the young
man's heart as he tried to say his private prayer; for the Curate of St
Roque's was not only a fervent Anglican, but also a young Englishman
_sans reproche_, with all the sensitive, almost fantastic, delicacy of
honour which belongs to that development of humanity; and not for a
dozen worlds would he have sacrificed a lily or a surplice on this
particular Easter, when all his worldly hopes hung in the balance. But
to think at this crowning moment that a villanous doubt of the benefit
of these surplices and lilies should seize his troubled heart! for just
then the strains of the organ died away in lengthened whispers, and Miss
Leonora Wentworth, severe and awful, swept up through the middle aisle.
It was under these terrible circumstances that the Perpetual Curate,
with his heart throbbing and his head aching, began to intone the
morning service on that Easter Sunday, ever after a day so memorable in
the records of St Roque's.