"The sum of it all is, that you won't hear any reason, Gerald," said
the Squire. "What your brother says, and what I say, are nothing; your
poor wife is nothing; and all a man's duties, sir, in life--all your
responsibilities, everything that is considered most sacred--"
"You may say what you will to me, father," said Gerald. "I can't
expect you should speak differently. But you may imagine I have looked
at it in every possible light before I came to this resolution. A man
does not decide easily when everything he prizes on earth is at
stake. I cannot see with Frank's eyes, or with yours; according to the
light God has given me, I must see with my own."
"But, God bless my soul! what do you mean by seeing with your own eyes?"
said the Squire. "Don't you know that is a Protestant doctrine, sir? Do
you think they'll let you see with any eyes but theirs when you get
among a set of Papists? Instead of an easy-going bishop, and friendly
fellows for brother clergymen, and parishioners that think everything
that's good of you, how do you suppose you'll feel as an Englishman when
you get into a dead Frenchified system, with everything going by rule
and measure, and bound to believe just as you're told? It'll kill you,
sir--that's what will be the end of it. If you are in your grave within
the year, it will be no wonder to me."
"Amen!" said Gerald, softly. "If that is to be all, we will not
quarrel with the result;" and he got up and went to the window, as if
to look for his cedar, which was not there. Perhaps the absence of his
silent referee gave him a kind of comfort, though at the same time it
disappointed him in some fantastical way, for he turned with a curious
look of relief and vexation to his brother. "We need not be always
thinking of it, even if this were to be the end," he said. "Come down
the avenue with me, Frank, and let us talk of something else. The
girls will grumble, but they can have you later: come, I want to hear
about yourself."
Unfortunately the Squire got up when his sons did, which was by no means
their intention; but Mr Wentworth was vexed and restless, and was not
willing to let Gerald off so easily. If he were mad, at least he ought
to be made duly wretched in his madness, Mr Wentworth thought; and he
went out with them, and arrested the words on their lips. Somehow
everything seemed to concur in hindering any appeal on the part of the
Curate. And Gerald, like most imaginative men, had a power of dismissing
his troubles after they had taken their will of him. It was he who took
the conversation on himself when they went out of doors. Finding Frank
slow in his report, Gerald went into all the country news for the
instruction of his brother. He had been down to the very depths during
the two previous days, and now he had come aloft again; for a man cannot
be miserable every moment of his life, however heavy his burden may be.
The "girls," whose anxieties had been much stimulated by the renewed
conference held with closed doors in the library, stood watching them
from one of the drawing-room windows. The boldest of the two had,
indeed, got her hat to follow them, not comprehending why Frank should
be monopolised for days together by anybody but herself, his favourite
sister; but something in the aspect of the three men, when they first
appeared under the lime-trees, had awed even the lively Letty out of her
usual courage. "But Gerald is talking and laughing just as usual," she
said, as she stood at the window dangling her hat in her hand--"more
than usual, for he has been very glum all this spring. Poor fellow! I
daresay Louisa worries him out of his life;" and with this easy
conclusion the elder brother was dismissed by the girls. "Perhaps Frank
is going to be married," said the other sister, who, under the lively
spur of this idea, came back to the window to gaze at him again, and
find out whether any intimation of this alarming possibility could be
gathered from the fit of his long clerical coat, or his manner of walk,
as he sauntered along under the limes. "As if a Perpetual Curate could
marry!" said Letty, with scorn, who knew the world. As for little Janet,
who was a tender-hearted little soul, she folded her two hands together,
and looked at her brother's back with a great increase of interest. "If
one loved him, one would not mind what he was," said the little maiden,
who had been in some trouble herself, and understood about such matters.
So the girls talked at their window, Mrs Wentworth being, as usual,
occupied with her nursery, and nobody else at hand to teach them wisdom,
and soon branched off into speculations about the post-bag, which was
"due," and which, perhaps, was almost more interesting, to one of them
at least, than even a brother who was going to be married.
In the mean time Gerald was talking of Huxtable and Plumstead, the
brother-in-law and cousin, who were both clergymen in the same
district, and about the people in the village whom they had known when
they were boys, and who never grew any older. "There is old Kilweed,
for example, who was Methuselah in those days--he's not eighty yet,"
he said, with a smile and a sigh; "it is we who grow older and come
nearer to the winter and the sunset. My father even has come down a
long way off the awful eminence on which I used to behold him: every
year that falls on my head seems to take one off his: if we both live
long enough, we shall feel like contemporaries by-and-by," said
Gerald: "just now the advantage of years is all on my side; and you
are my junior, sir." He was switching down the weeds among the grass
with his cane as he spoke, like any schoolboy; the air, and perhaps a
little excitement, had roused the blood to his cheek. He did not look
the same man as the pale martyr in the library--not that he had any
reason for appearing different, but only that inalienable poetic
waywardness which kept him up through his trouble. As for Mr
Wentworth, he resented the momentary brightening, which he took for
levity.
"I thought we came out here to prolong our discussion," said the
Squire. "I don't understand this light way of talking. If you mean
what you have said, sir, I should never expect to see you smile more."
"The smiling makes little difference," said Gerald; but he stopped
short in his talk, and there was a pause among them till the postboy
came up to them with his bag, which Mr Wentworth, with much
importance, paused to open. The young men, who had no special interest
in its contents, went on. Perhaps the absence of their father was a
relief to them. They were nearer to each other, understood each other
better than he could do; and they quickened their pace insensibly as
they began to talk. It is easy to imagine what kind of talk it
was--entire sympathy, yet disagreement wide as the poles--here for a
few steps side by side, there darting off at the most opposite
tangent; but they had begun to warm to it, and to forget everything
else, when a succession of lusty hollos from the Squire brought them
suddenly to themselves, and to a dead stop. When they looked round, he
was making up to them with choleric strides. "What the deuce do you
mean, sir, by having telegrams sent here?" cried Mr Wentworth,
pitching at his son Frank an ominous ugly envelope, in blue and red,
such as the unsophisticated mind naturally trembles at. "Beg your
pardon, Gerald; but I never can keep my temper when I see a telegraph.
I daresay it's something about Charley," said the old man, in a
slightly husky voice--"to make up to us for inventing troubles." The
Squire was a good deal disturbed by the sight of that ill-omened
message; and it was the better way, as he knew by experience, to throw
his excitement into the shape of anger rather than that of grief.
"It's nothing about Charley," said Frank; and Mr Wentworth blew his
nose violently and drew a long breath. "I don't understand it," said
the Curate, who looked scared and pale; "it seems to be from Jack;
though why _he_ is in Carlingford, or what he has to do--"
"He's ill, sir, I suppose--dying; nothing else was to be looked for,"
said the Squire, and held out his hand, which trembled, for the
telegram. "Stuff! why shouldn't I be able to bear it? Has he been any
comfort to me? Can't you read it, one of you?" cried the old man.
"'John Wentworth to the Reverend--'"
"God bless my soul! can't you come to what he says?"
"'Come back directly--you are wanted here; I am in trouble, as usual;
and T.W.--'"
Here the Squire took a step backwards, and set himself against a tree.
"The sun comes in one's eyes," he said, rather feebly. "There's
something poisonous in the air today. Here's Gerald going out of the
Church; and here's Frank in Jack's secrets. God forgive him! Lads, it
seems you think I've had enough of this world's good. My heir's a
swindling villain, and you know it; and here's Frank going the same
road too."
The Squire did not hear the words that both the brothers addressed to
him; he was unconscious of the Curate's disclaimer and eager explanation
that he knew nothing about Jack, and could not understand his presence
in Carlingford. The blow he had got the previous day had confused his
brain outside, and these accumulated vexations had bewildered it within.
"And I could have sworn by Frank!" said the old man, piteously, to
himself, as he put up his hand unawares and tugged at the dainty
starched cravat which was his pride. If they had not held him in their
arms, he would have slid down at the foot of the tree, against which he
had instinctively propped himself. The attack was less alarming to
Gerald, who had seen it before, than to Frank, who had only heard of it;
but the postboy was still within call, by good fortune, and was sent off
for assistance. They carried him to the Hall, gasping for breath, and in
a state of partial unconsciousness, but still feebly repeating those
words which went to the Curate's heart--"I could have sworn by Frank!"
The house was in a great fright and tumult, naturally, before they
reached it, Mrs Wentworth fainting, the girls looking on in dismay, and
the whole household moved to awe and alarm, knowing that one time or
other Death would come so. As for the Curate of St Roque's, he had
already made up his mind, with unexpected anguish, not only that his
father was dying, but that his father would die under a fatal
misconception about himself; and between this overwhelming thought, and
the anxiety which nobody understood or could sympathise with respecting
Jack's message, the young man was almost beside himself. He went away in
utter despair from the anxious consultations of the family after the
doctor had come, and kept walking up and down before the house, waiting
to hear the worst, as he thought; but yet unable, even while his father
lay dying, to keep from thinking what miserable chance, what folly or
crime, had taken Jack to Carlingford, and what his brother could have to
do with the owner of the initials named in his telegram. He was lost in
this twofold trouble when Gerald came out to him with brightened looks.
"He is coming round, and the doctor says there is no immediate
danger," said Gerald; "and it is only immediate danger one is afraid
of. He was as well as ever last time in a day or two. It is the
complaint of the Wentworths, you know--we all die of it; but, Frank,
tell me what is this about Jack?"
"I know no more than you do," said the Curate, when he had recovered
himself a little. "I must go back, not having done much good here, to
see."
"And T.W.?" said Gerald. The elder brother looked at the younger
suspiciously, as if he were afraid for him; and it was scarcely in
human nature not to feel a momentary flash of resentment.
"I tell you I know nothing about it," said Frank, "except what is
evident to any one, that Jack has gone to Carlingford in my absence,
being in trouble somehow. I suppose he always is in trouble. I have not
heard from him since I went there; but as it don't seem I can be of any
use here, as soon as my father is safe, I will go back. Louisa imagined,
you know--; but she was wrong."
"Yes," said Gerald, quietly. That subject was concluded, and there was
no more to say.
The same evening, as the Squire continued to improve, and had been able
to understand his energetic explanation that he was entirely ignorant of
Jack's secrets, Frank Wentworth went back again with a very disturbed
mind. He went into the Rectory as he passed down to the station, to say
good-bye to Louisa, who was sitting in the drawing-room with her
children round her, and her trouble considerably lightened, though there
was no particular cause for it. Dressing for dinner had of itself a
beneficial effect upon Louisa: she could not understand how a life could
ever be changed which was so clearly ordained of Heaven; for if Gerald
was not with her, what inducement could she possibly have to dress for
dinner? and then what would be the good of all the pretty wardrobe with
which Providence had endowed her? Must not Providence take care that its
gifts were not thus wasted? So the world was once more set fast on its
foundations, and the pillars of earth remained unshaken, when Frank
glanced in on his way to the station to say good-bye.
"Don't be afraid, Louisa; I don't believe he would be allowed to do it,"
said the Curate in her ear. "The Church of Rome does not go in the face
of nature. She will not take him away from you. Keep your heart at ease
as much as you can. Good-bye."
"You mean about Gerald. Oh, you don't _really_ think he could ever
have had the heart?" said Mrs Wentworth. "I am so sorry you are going
away without any dinner or anything comfortable; and it was so good of
you to come, and I feel so much better. I shall always be grateful to
you, dear Frank, for showing Gerald his mistake; and tell dear aunt
Dora I am so much obliged to her for thinking of the blanket for the
bassinet. I am sure it will be lovely. Must you go? Good-bye. I am
sure you have always been like my own brother--Frank, dear, good-bye.
Come and kiss your dear uncle, children, and say good-bye."
This was how Louisa dismissed him after all his efforts on her behalf.
The girls were waiting for him on the road, still full of anxiety to
know why he had come so suddenly, and was going away so soon. "We have
not had half a peep of you," said Letty; "and it is wicked of you not
to tell us; as if anybody could sympathise like your sisters--your
very own sisters, Frank," said the young lady, with a pressure on his
arm. In such a mixed family the words meant something.
"We had made up our minds you had come to tell papa," said Janet,
with her pretty shy look; "that was my guess--you might tell us her
name, Frank."
"Whose name?" said the unfortunate Curate; and the dazzling vision of
Lucy Wodehouse's face, which came upon him at the moment, was such,
that the reluctant blood rose high in his cheeks--which, of course,
the girls were quick enough to perceive.
"It _is_ about some girl, after all," said Letty; "oh me! I did not
think you had been like all the rest. I thought you had other things
to think of. Janet may say what she likes--but I do think it's
contemptible always to find out, when a man, who can do lots of
things, is in trouble, that it's about some girl or other like one's
self! I did not expect it of you, Frank--but all the same, tell us who
she is?" said the favourite sister, clasping his arm confidentially,
and dropping her voice.
"There is the train. Good-bye, girls, and be sure you write to me
to-morrow how my father is," said the Curate. He had taken his seat
before they could ask further questions, and in a minute or two more
was dashing out of the little station, catching their smiles and
adieus as he went, and turning back last of all for another look at
Gerald, who stood leaning on his stick, looking after the train, with
the mist of preoccupation gathering again over his smiling eyes. The
Curate went back to his corner after that, and lost himself in
thoughts and anxieties still more painful. What had Jack to do in
Carlingford? what connection had he with those initials, or how did he
know their owner? All sorts of horrible fears came over the Curate of
St Roque's. He had not seen his elder brother for years, and Jack's
career was not one for the family to be proud of. Had he done
something too terrible to be hidden--too clamorous to let his name
drop out of remembrance, as was to be desired for the credit of the
Wentworths? This speculation whiled the night away but drearily, as the
Perpetual Curate went back to the unknown tide of cares which had
surged in his absence into his momentarily abandoned place.