"I want to know what all this means about young Wentworth," said Mr
Wodehouse. "He's gone off, it appears, in a hurry, nobody knows where.
Well, so they say. To his brother's, is it? _I_ couldn't know that;
but look here--that's not all, nor nearly all--they say he meets that
little Rosa at Elsworthy's every night, and walks home with her, and
all that sort of thing. I tell you I don't know--that's what people
say. You ought to understand all the rights of it, you two girls. I
confess I thought it was Lucy he was after, for my part--and a very
bad match, too, and one I should never have given my consent to. And
then there is another fine talk about some fellow he's got at his
house. What's the matter, Molly?--she looks as if she was going to
faint."
"Oh no," said Miss Wodehouse, faintly; "and I don't believe a word
about Rosa Elsworthy," she said, with sudden impetuosity, a minute
after. "I am sure Mr Wentworth could vindicate himself whenever he
likes. I daresay the one story is just as true as the other; but
then," said the gentle elder sister, turning with anxious looks
towards Lucy, "he is proud, as is natural; and I shouldn't think he
would enter into explanations if he thought people did not trust him
without them."
"That is all stuff," said Mr Wodehouse; "why should people trust him? I
don't understand trusting a man in all sorts of equivocal circumstances,
because he's got dark eyes, &c., and a handsome face--which seems _your_
code of morality; but I thought he was after Lucy--that was my
belief--and I want to know if it's all off."
"It never was on, papa," said Lucy, in her clearest voice. "I have been
a great deal in the district, you know, and Mr Wentworth and I could not
help meeting each other; that is all about it: but people must always
have something to talk about in Carlingford. I hope you don't think I
and Rosa Elsworthy could go together," she went on, turning round to him
with a smile. "I don't think that would be much of a compliment;" and,
saying this, Lucy went to get her work out of its usual corner, and sat
down opposite to her father, with a wonderfully composed face. She was
so composed, indeed, that any interested beholder might have been
justified in thinking that the work suffered in consequence, for it
seemed to take nearly all Lucy's strength and leisure to keep up that
look.
"Oh!" said Mr Wodehouse, "that's how it was? Then I wonder why that
confounded puppy came here so constantly? I don't like that sort of
behaviour. Don't you go into the district any more and meet
him--that's all I've got to say."
"Because of Rosa Elsworthy?" said Lucy, with a little smile, which did
not flicker naturally, but was apt to get fixed at the corners of her
pretty mouth. "That would never do, papa. Mr Wentworth's private
concerns are nothing to us; but, you know, there is a great work going
on in the district, and _that_ can't be interfered with," said the young
Sister of Mercy, looking up at him with a decision which Mr Wodehouse
was aware he could make no stand against. And when she stopped speaking,
Lucy did a little work, which was for the district too. All this time
she was admitting to herself that she had been much startled by this
news about Rosa Elsworthy,--much startled. To be sure, it was not like
Mr Wentworth, and very likely it would impair his influence; and it was
natural that any friend taking an interest in him and the district,
should be taken a little aback by such news. Accordingly, Lucy sat a
little more upright than usual, and was conscious that when she smiled,
as she had just done, the smile did not glide off again in a natural
way, but settled down into the lines of her face with a kind of spasmodic
tenacity. She could do a great deal in the way of self-control, but she
could not quite command these refractory muscles. Mr Wodehouse, who was
not particularly penetrating, could not quite make her out; he saw there
was something a little different from her ordinary look about his
favourite child, but he had not insight enough to enable him to
comprehend what it was.
"And about his man who is staying at Mrs Hadwin's?" said the perplexed
churchwarden; "does any one know who the fellow is? I don't understand
how Wentworth has got into all this hot water in a moment. Here's the
Rector in a state of fury,--and his aunts,--and now here's this little
bit of scandal to crown all;--and who is this fellow in his house?"
"It must be somebody he has taken in out of charity," said Miss
Wodehouse, with tears in her eyes; "I am sure it is somebody whom he
has opened his doors to out of Christian charity and the goodness of
his heart. I don't understand how you can all desert him at the first
word. All the years he has been here, you know there never was a
whisper against him; and is it in reason to think he would go so far
wrong all in a moment?" cried the faithful advocate of the Perpetual
Curate. Her words were addressed to Mr Wodehouse, but her eyes sought
Lucy, who was sitting very upright doing her work, without any leisure
to look round. Lucy had quite enough to occupy her within herself at
that emergency, and the tearful appeal of her elder sister had no
effect upon her. As for Mr Wodehouse, he was more and more puzzled how
to interpret these tears in his daughter's eyes.
"I don't make it out at all," said the perplexed father, getting up to
leave the room. "I hope _you_ weren't in love with him, Molly? you
ought to have too much sense for that. A pretty mess he'll find when
he comes home; but he must get out of it the best way he can, for _I_
can't help him, at least. I don't mean to have him asked here any
more--you understand, Lucy," he said, turning round at the door, with
an emphatic creak of his boots. But Lucy had no mind to be seduced
into any such confession of weakness.
"You are always having everybody in Carlingford to dinner," said the
young housekeeper, "and all the clergymen, even _that_ Mr Leeson; and
I don't see why you should except Mr Wentworth, papa; he has done
nothing wicked, so far as we know. I daresay he won't want to bring
Rosa Elsworthy with him; and why shouldn't he be asked here?" said
Lucy, looking full in his face with her bright eyes. Mr Wodehouse was
entirely discomfited, and did not know what to say. "I wonder if you
know what you mean yourselves, you women," he muttered; and then, with
a shrug of his shoulders, and a hasty "settle it as you please," the
churchwarden's boots creaked hastily out of the room, and out of the
house.
After this a dead silence fell upon the drawing-room and its two
occupants. They did not burst forth into mutual comment upon this last
piece of Carlingford news, as they would have done under any other
circumstances; on the contrary, they bent over their several occupations
with quite an unusual devotion, not exchanging so much as a look. Lucy,
over her needlework, was the steadiest of the two; she was still at the
same point in her thoughts, owning to herself that she was startled, and
indeed shocked, by what she had heard--that it was a great pity for Mr
Wentworth; perhaps that it was not quite what might have been expected
of him,--and then she checked herself, and went back again to her
original acknowledgment. To tell the truth, though she assured herself
that she had nothing to do with it, a strange sense of having just
passed through an unexpected illness, lay underneath Lucy's composure.
It was none of her business, to be sure, but she could not help feeling
as if she had just had a fever, or some other sudden unlooked-for
attack, and that nobody knew of it, and that she must get well as best
she could, without any help from without.
It was quite half an hour before Miss Wodehouse got up from the
knitting which she had spoiled utterly, trying to take up the dropped
stitches with her trembling fingers, and dropping others by every
effort she made. The poor lady went wistfully about the room,
wandering from corner to corner, as if in search of something; at last
she took courage to speak, when she found herself behind her young
sister. "Dear, I am sure it is not true," said Miss Wodehouse,
suddenly, with a little sob; and then she came close to Lucy's chair,
and put her hand timidly upon her sister's shoulder. "Think how many
good things you two have done together, dear; and is it likely you are
to be parted like this?" said the injudicious comforter. It felt
rather like another attack of fever to Lucy, as unexpected as the
last.
"Don't speak so, please," said the poor girl, with a momentary shiver.
"It is about Mr Wentworth you mean?" she went on, after a little,
without turning her head. "I--am sorry, of course. I am afraid it will
do him--harm," and then she made a pause, and stumbled over her sewing
with fingers which felt feeble and powerless to the very tips--all on
account of this fever she had had. "But I don't know any reason why
you and I should discuss it, Mary," she said, getting up in her turn,
not quite sure whether she could stand at this early period of her
convalescence, but resolved to try. "We are both Mr Wentworth's
friends--and we need not say any harm of him. I have to get something
out of the storeroom for to-night."
"But, Lucy," said the tender, trembling sister, who did not know how
to be wise and silent, "_I_ trust him, and _you_ don't. Oh, my dear,
it will break my heart. I know some part of it is not true. I know one
thing in which he is quite--quite innocent. Oh, Lucy, my darling, if
you distrust him it will be returning evil for good!" cried poor Miss
Wodehouse, with tears. As for Lucy, she did not quite know what her
sister said. She only felt that it was cruel to stop her, and look at
her, and talk to her; and there woke up in her mind a fierce sudden
spark of resistance to the intolerable.
"Why do you hold me? I may have been ill, but I can stand well enough
by myself," cried Lucy, to her sister's utter bewilderment. "That is,
I--I mean, I have other things to attend to," she cried, breaking into
a few hot tears of mortification over this self-betrayal; and so went
away in a strange glow and tremble of sudden passion, such as had
never been seen before in that quiet house. She went direct to the
storeroom, as she had said, and got out what was wanted; and only
after that was done permitted herself to go up to her own room, and
turn the key in her door. Though she was a Sister of Mercy, and much
beloved in Prickett's Lane, she was still but one of Eve's poor
petulant women-children, and had it in her to fly at an intruder on
her suffering, like any other wounded creature. But she did not make
any wild demonstration of her pain, even when shut up thus in her
fortress. She sat down on the sofa, in a kind of dull heaviness,
looking into vacancy. She was not positively thinking of Mr Wentworth,
or of any one thing in particular. She was only conscious of a
terrible difference somehow in everything about her--in the air which
choked her breathing, and the light which blinded her eyes. When she
came to herself a little, she said over and over, half-aloud, that
everything was just the same as it had always been, and that to her at
least nothing had happened; but that declaration, though made with
vehemence, did not alter matters. The world altogether had sustained a
change. The light that was in it was darkened, and the heart stilled.
All at once, instead of a sweet spontaneous career, providing for its
own wants day by day, life came to look like something which required
such an amount of courage and patience and endurance as Lucy had not
at hand to support her in the way; and her heart failed her at the
moment when she found this out.
Notwithstanding, the people who dined at Mr Wodehouse's that night
thought it a very agreeable little party, and more than once repeated
the remark, so familiar to most persons in society in Carlingford--that
Wodehouse's parties were the pleasantest going, though he himself was
humdrum enough. Two or three of the people present had heard the
gossip about Mr Wentworth, and discussed it, as was natural, taking
different views of the subject; and poor Miss Wodehouse took up his
defence so warmly, and with such tearful vehemence, that there were
smiles to be seen on several faces. As for Lucy, she made only a very
simple remark on the subject. She said: "Mr Wentworth is a great
friend of ours, and I think I would rather not hear any gossip about
him." Of course there were one or two keen observers who put a subtle
meaning to this, and knew what was signified by her looks and her ways
all the evening; but, most likely, they were altogether mistaken in
their suppositions, for nobody could possibly watch her so closely as
did Miss Wodehouse, who know no more than the man in the moon, at the
close of the evening, whether her young sister was very wretched or
totally indifferent. The truth was certainly not to be discovered, for
that night at least, in Lucy's looks.