The next afternoon there were signs of a considerable commotion in Mr
Elsworthy's shop. Rosa had disappeared altogether, and Mrs Elsworthy,
with an ominous redness on her cheeks, had taken the place generally
held by that more agreeable little figure. All the symptoms of having
been engaged in an affray from which she had retired not altogether
victorious were in Mrs Elsworthy's face, and the errand-boys vanished
from her neighbourhood with inconceivable rapidity, and found out little
parcels to deliver which would have eluded their most anxious search in
other circumstances. Mr Elsworthy himself occupied his usual place in
the foreground, without the usual marks of universal content and
satisfaction with all his surroundings which generally distinguished
him. An indescribable appearance of having been recently snubbed hung
about the excellent man, and his glances towards the back-shop, and the
glances directed from the back-shop to him, told with sufficient
significance the quarter from which his humiliation had proceeded. It
had done him good, as such painful discipline generally does; for he was
clearing out some drawers in which sundry quires of paper had broken
loose and run into confusion, with the air of a man who ought to have
done it weeks ago. As for the partner of his bosom, she was standing in
the obscure distance behind the counter knitting a blue stocking, which
was evidently intended for no foot but his. There was a chair close by,
but Mrs Elsworthy disdained to sit down. She stood with her knitting in
conscious power, now and then suffering a confession of her faith to
escape her. "There's nothing as don't go contrary in this world," said
the discontented wife, "when a man's a fool." It was hard upon Mr
Elsworthy that his ears were sharp, and that he knew exactly what this
agreeable murmur was. But he was wise in his generation, and made no
reply.
Things were in this condition when, of all persons in Carlingford, it
occurred to Miss Leonora Wentworth to enter Mr Elsworthy's shop. Not
that she was alone, or bent upon any errand of inquiry; for Miss
Leonora seldom moved about unattended by her sisters, whom she felt it
her duty to take out for exercise; and wonderfully enough, she had not
found out yet what was the source of Miss Dora's mysteries and
depression, having been still occupied meantime by her own "great
work" in her London district, and the affair of the gin-palace, which
was still undecided. She had been talking a great deal about this
gin-palace for the last twenty-four hours; and to hear Miss Leonora,
you might have supposed that all the powers of heaven must fail and be
discomfited before this potent instrument of evil, and that, after
all, Bibles and missionaries were much less effective than the
stoppage of the licence, upon which all her agents were bent. At all
events, such an object of interest had swept out from her thoughts the
vague figure of her nephew Frank, and aunt Dora's mysterious anxieties
on his account. When the three ladies approached Elsworthy's, the
first thing that attracted their attention was Rosa, the little Rosa
who had been banished from the shop, and whom Mrs Elsworthy believed
to be expiating her sins in a back room, in tears and darkness;
instead of which the little girl was looking out of her favourite
window, and amusing herself much with all that was going on in Grange
Lane. Though she was fluttered by the scolding she had received, Rosa
only looked prettier than usual with her flushed cheeks; and so many
things had been put into her nonsensical little head during the last
two days, especially by her aunt's denunciations, that her sense of
self-importance was very much heightened in consequence. She looked at
the Miss Wentworths with a throb of mingled pride and alarm, wondering
whether perhaps she might know more of them some day, if Mr Wentworth
was really fond of her, as people said--which thought gave Rosa a
wonderful sensation of awe and delighted vanity. Meanwhile the three
Miss Wentworths looked at her with very diverse feelings. "I must
speak to these people about that little girl, if nobody else has sense
enough to do it," said Miss Leonora; "she is evidently going wrong as
fast as she can, the little fool;" and the iron-grey sister went into
Mr Elsworthy's in this perfectly composed and ordinary frame of mind,
with her head full of the application which was to be made to the
licensing magistrates today, in the parish of St Michael, and totally
unaware that anybody belonging to herself could ever be connected with
the incautious little coquette at the window. Miss Dora's feelings
were very different. It was much against her will that she was going
at all into this obnoxious shop, and the eyes which she hastily
uplifted to the window and withdrew again with lively disgust and
dislike, were both angry and tearful; "Little forward shameless
thing," Miss Dora said to herself, with a little toss of her head. As
for Miss Wentworth, it was not her custom to say anything--but she,
too, looked up, and saw the pretty face at the window, and secretly
concluded that it might all be quite true, and that she had known a
young man make a fool of himself before now for such another. So they
all went in, unwitting that they came at the end of a domestic
hurricane, and that the waters were still in a state of disturbance.
Miss Wentworth took the only chair, as was natural, and sat down
sweetly to wait for Leonora, and Miss Dora lingered behind while her
sister made her purchases. Miss Leonora wanted some books--
"And I came here," she said, with engaging candour, "because I see no
other shop in this part of the town except Masters's, which, of
course, I would not enter. It is easy enough to do without books, but
I can't afford to compromise my principles, Mr Elsworthy;" to which Mr
Elsworthy had replied, "No, ma'am, of course not--such a thing aint to
be expected;" with one eye upon his customer, and one upon his
belligerent wife.
"And, by the by, if you will permit me to speak about what does not
concern me," said Miss Leonora cheerfully, "I think you should look
after that little girl of yours more carefully;--recollect I don't
mean any offence; but she's very pretty, you know, and very young, and
vain, as a matter of course. I saw her the other evening going down
Grange Lane, a great deal too late for such a creature to be out; and
though I don't doubt, you are very particular where she goes--"
It was at this conjuncture that Mrs Elsworthy, who could not keep
silence any longer, broke in ardently, with all her knitting-needles
in front of her, disposed like a kind of porcupine mail--
"I'm well known in Carlingford--better known than most," said Mrs
Elsworthy, with a sob; "such a thing as not being particular was never
named to me. I strive and I toil from morning to night, as all things
should be respectable and kep' in good order; but what's the good?
Here's my heart broken, that's all; and Elsworthy standing gaping like
a gaby as he is. There aint nothing as don't go contrairy, when folks
is tied to a set of fools!" cried the indignant matron. "As for
pretty, I don't know nothing about it; I've got too much to do minding
my own business. Them as has nothing to think of but stand in the shop
and twiddle their thumbs, ought to look to that; but, ma'am, if you'll
believe me, it aint no fault of mine. It aint my will to throw her in
any young gentleman's way; not to say a clergyman as we're bound to
respect. Whatever you does, ladies,--and I shouldn't wonder at your
taking away your custom, nor nothing else as was a punishment--don't
blame me!"
"But you forget, Mrs Elsworthy, that we have nothing to do with
it,--nothing at all; my nephew knows very well what he is about," said
Miss Dora, in injudicious haste. "Mr Wentworth is not at all likely to
forget himself," continued that poor lady, getting confused as her
sister turned round and stared at her. "Of course it was all out of
kindness;--I--I know Frank did not mean anything," cried the
unfortunate aunt. Leonora's look, as she turned round and fixed her
eyes upon her, took away what little breath Miss Dora had.
"Mr Wentworth?" asked Miss Leonora; "I should be glad to know, if
anybody would inform me, what Mr Wentworth can possibly have to do
with it? I daresay you misunderstood me; I said you were to look after
that little girl--your niece, or whatever she is; I did not say
anything about Mr Wentworth," said the strong-minded sister, looking
round upon them all. For the moment she forgot all about the licence,
and turned upon Mr Elsworthy with an emphasis which almost drive that
troubled citizen to his knees.
"That was how I understood it," said the clerk of St Roque's, humbly;
"there wasn't nothing said about Mr Wentworth--nor there couldn't be
as I know of, but what was in his favour, for there aint many young
men like our clergyman left in the Church. It aint because I'm
speaking to respected ladies as is his relations; folks may talk,"
said Mr Elsworthy, with a slight faltering, "but I never see his
equal; and as for an act of kindness to an orphan child--"
"The orphan child is neither here nor there," said his angry wife, who
had taken up her post by his side; "a dozen fathers and mothers
couldn't have done better by her than we've done; and to go and lay
out her snares for them as is so far above her, if you'll believe me,
ma'am, it's nigh broken my heart. She's neither flesh nor blood o'
mine," cried the aggrieved woman; "there would have been a different
tale to tell if she had belonged to me. I'd have--murdered her, ma'am,
though it aint proper to say so, afore we'd have gone and raised a
talk like this; it aint my blame, if it was my dying word," cried Mrs
Elsworthy, relapsing into angry tears: "I'm one as has always shown
her a good example, and never gone flirting about, nor cast my eyes to
one side or another for the best man as ever walked; and to think as a
respectable family should be brought to shame through her doings, and
a gentleman as is a clergyman got himself talked about--it's gone nigh
to kill me, that's what it's done," sobbed the virtuous matron; "and I
don't see as nobody cares."
Miss Leonora had been woke up suddenly out of her abstract
occupations; she penetrated to the heart of the matter while all this
talk was going on. She transfixed her sister Dora, who seemed much
inclined to cry like Mrs Elsworthy, with a look which overwhelmed that
trembling woman; then she addressed herself with great suavity to the
matter in hand.
"I suppose it is this poor little foolish child who has been getting
herself talked about?" said Miss Leonora. "It's a pity, to be sure,
but I daresay it's not so bad as you think. As for her laying snares
for people above her, I wouldn't be afraid of that. Poor little thing!
It's not so easy as you think laying snares. Perhaps it's the new
minister at Salem Chapel who has been paying attention to her? I would
not take any notice of it if I were you. Don't let her loll about at
the window as she's doing, and don't let her go out so late, and give
her plenty of work to do. My maid wants some one to help in her
needlework. Perhaps this child would do, Cecilia?" said Miss Leonora.
"As for her snares, poor thing, I don't feel much afraid of them. I
daresay if Mr Wentworth had Sunday classes for the young people as I
wished him to have, and took pains to give them proper instruction,
such things would not happen. If you send her to my maid, I flatter
myself she will soon come to her senses. Good morning; and you will
please to send me the books--there are some others I want you to get
for me next week," said Mr Elsworthy's patroness. "I will follow you,
Dora, please," and Miss Leonora swept her sisters out before her, and
went upon her way with indescribable grandeur. Even little Rosa felt
the change, where she sat at the window looking out. The little vain
creature no longer felt it possible to believe, as she looked after
them, that she ever could be anything to the Miss Wentworths except a
little girl in a shop. It shook her confidence in what people said;
and it was as well for her that she withdrew from the window at that
conjuncture, and so had an opportunity of hearing her aunt come
up-stairs, and of darting back again to the penitential darkness of
her own chamber at the back of the house--which saved Rosa some angry
words at least.
As for Miss Leonora Wentworth, she said nothing to her sisters on this
new subject. She saw them safely home to their own apartments, and
went out again without explaining her movements. When she was gone,
Miss Wentworth listened to Miss Dora's doubts and tears with her
usual patience, but did not go into the matter much. "It doesn't
matter whether it is your fault or not," said aunt Cecilia, with a
larger amount of words than usual, and a sharpness very uncommon with
her; "but I daresay Leonora will set it all right." After all, the
confidence which the elder sister had in Leonora was justified. She
did not entirely agree with her about the "great work," nor was
disposed to connect the non-licensing of the gin-palace in any way
with the faithfulness of God: but she comprehended in her gentle heart
that there were other matters of which Leonora was capable. As for
Miss Dora, she went to the summer-house at last, and, seating herself
at the window, cried under her breath till she had a very bad
headache, and was of no use for any purpose under heaven. She thought
nothing less than that Leonora had gone abroad to denounce poor Frank,
and tell everybody how wicked he was; and she was so sure her poor
dear boy did not mean anything! She sat with her head growing heavier
and heavier, watching for her sister's return, and calculating within
herself how many places Leonora must have called at, and how utterly
gone by this time must be the character of the Perpetual Curate. At
last, in utter despair, with her thin curls all limp about her poor
cheeks, Miss Dora had to go to bed and have the room darkened, and
swallow cups of green tea and other nauseous compounds, at the will
and pleasure of her maid, who was learned in headache. The poor lady
sobbed herself to sleep after a time, and saw, in a hideous dream, her
sister Leonora marching from house to house of poor Frank's friends,
and closing door after door with all sorts of clang and dash upon the
returning prodigal. "But oh, it was not my fault--oh, my dear, she
found it out herself. You do not think _I_ was to blame?" sobbed poor
aunt Dora in her troubled slumber; and her headache did not get any
better notwithstanding the green tea.
Miss Dora's visions were partly realised, for it was quite true that
her iron-grey sister was making a round of calls upon Frank's friends.
Miss Leonora Wentworth went out in great state that day. She had her
handsomest dress on, and the bonnet which her maid had calculated upon
as her own property, because it was much too nice for Miss Leonora. In
this impossible attire she went to see Mrs Hadwin, and was very gracious
to that unsuspecting woman, and learned a few things of which she had
not the least conception previously. Then she went to the Miss
Wodehouses, and made the elder sister there mighty uncomfortable by her
keen looks and questions; and what Miss Leonora did after that was not
distinctly known to any one. She got into Prickett's Lane somehow, and
stumbled upon No. 10, much to the surprise of the inhabitants; and
before she returned home she had given Mrs Morgan her advice about the
Virginian creeper which was intended to conceal the continual passage of
the railway trains. "But I would not trust to trellis-work. I would
build up the wall a few feet higher, and then you will have some
satisfaction in your work," said Miss Leonora, and left the Rector's
wife to consider the matter in rather an agreeable state of mind, for
that had been Mrs Morgan's opinion all along. After this last visit the
active aunt returned home, going leisurely along George Street, and down
Grange Lane, with meditative steps. Miss Leonora, of course, would not
for kingdoms have confessed that any new light had come into her mind,
or that some very ordinary people in Carlingford, no one of whom she
could have confidently affirmed to be a converted person, had left a
certain vivid and novel impression upon her thoughts. She went along
much more slowly than usual in this new mood of reflectiveness. She was
not thinking of the licensing magistrates of St Michael's nor the
beautiful faith of the colporteur. Other ideas filled her mind at the
moment. Whether perhaps, after all, a man who did his duty by rich and
poor, and could encounter all things for love and duty's sake, was not
about the best man for a parish priest, even though he did have
choristers in white surplices, and lilies on the Easter altar? Whether
it might not be a comfort to know that in the pretty parsonage at
Skelmersdale there was some one ready to start at a moment's notice for
the help of a friend or the succour of a soul--brother to Charley who
won the Cross for valour, and not unworthy of the race? Some strange
moisture came into the corners of Miss Leonora's eyes. There was Gerald
too, whom the Perpetual Curate had declared to be the best man he ever
knew; and the Evangelical woman, with all her prejudices, could not in
her heart deny it. Various other thoughts of a similar description, but
too shadowy to bear expression, came in spite of herself through Miss
Leonora's mind. "We know that God heareth not sinners; but if any man be
a worshipper of God and doeth His will, him He heareth;" and it occurred
to her vaguely, for the first time, that she was harder to please than
her Master. Not that such an idea could get possession of a mind so well
fortified, at the first assault; but it was strange how often the
thought came back to her that the man who had thrilled through all those
people about Prickett's Lane a kind of vague sense that they were
Christians, and not hopeless wretches, forgotten of God; and who had
taken in the mysterious lodger at Mrs Hadwin's, bearing the penalty of
suspicion without complaint, would be true at his post wherever he might
be, and was a priest of God's appointing. Such were the strangely novel
ideas which went flashing through Miss Leonora's mind as she went home
to dinner, ejecting summarily the new gin-palaces and her favourite
colporteur. If anybody had stated them in words, she would have
indignantly scouted such latitudinarian stuff; but they kept flickering
in the strangest fluctuations, coming and going, bringing in native
Wentworth prejudices and natural affections to overcome all other
prepossessions, in the most inveterate, unexplainable way. For it will
be apparent that Miss Leonora, being a woman of sense, utterly scorned
the Rosa Elsworthy hypothesis, and comprehended as nearly how it
happened as it was possible for any one unaware of the facts to do.
Such were the good and bad angels who fought over the Curate's fate
while he was away. He might have been anxious if he had known anything
about them, or had been capable of imagining any such clouds as those
which overshadowed his good name in the lively imagination of
Carlingford. But Rosa Elsworthy never could have occurred to the
unconscious young man as a special danger, any more than the relenting
in the heart of his aunt Leonora could have dawned upon him as a
possible happiness. To tell the truth, he had left home, so far as he
himself was concerned, in rather a happy state of mind than otherwise,
with healthful impulses of opposition to the Rector, and confidence in
the sympathy of Lucy. To hear that Lucy had given him up, and that
Miss Leonora and Mrs Morgan were the only people who believed in him,
would have gone pretty far at this moment to make an end of the
Perpetual Curate. But fortunately he knew nothing about it; and while
Lucy held her head high with pain, and walked over the burning coals a
conscious martyr, and Miss Dora sobbed herself asleep in her darkened
room, all on his account, there was plenty of trouble, perplexity, and
distress in Wentworth Rectory to occupy to the full all the thoughts
and powers of the Curate of St Roque's.