When the green door was opened, Mr Wentworth saw at a glance that
there was agitation and trouble in the house. Lights were twinkling
irregularly in the windows here and there, but the family apartment,
the cheerful drawing-room, which generally threw its steady, cheerful
blaze over the dark garden, shone but faintly with half-extinguished
lights and undrawn curtains. It was evident at a glance that the room
was deserted, and its usual occupants engaged elsewhere. "Master's
very bad, sir," said the servant who opened the door; "the young
ladies is both with him, and a hired nurse come in besides. The doctor
don't seem to have no great hopes, but it will be a comfort to know as
you have come back. Miss Wodehouse wanted you very bad an hour or two
ago, for they thought as master was reviving, and could understand.
I'll go and let them know you are here."
"Don't disturb them, unless I can be of use," said Mr Wentworth. The
look of the house, and the atmosphere of distress and anxiety about
it, chilled him suddenly. His visions and hopes seemed guilty and
selfish as he went slowly up those familiar steps and into the house,
over which the shadow of death seemed already lying. He went by
himself into the forsaken drawing-room, where two neglected candles
were burning feebly in a corner, and the wistful sky looking in as if
to ask why the domestic temple was thus left open and uncared for.
After the first moment he went hastily to the windows, and drew down
the blinds in a kind of tender impatience. He could not bear that
anything in the world, even her father's danger, should discompose the
sweet, good order of the place where Lucy's image dwelt. There was a
chair and her basket of work, and on the little table a book marked
with pencil-marks, such as youthful readers love to make; and by
degrees that breath of Lucy lingering in the silent room overcame its
dreariness, and the painful sense of desertion which had struck him at
first. He hovered about that corner where her usual place was, feeling
in his heart that Lucy in trouble was dearer, if possible, than Lucy
in happiness, and hung over her chair, with a mixture of reverence and
tenderness and yearning, which could never be expressed in words. It
was the divinest phase of love which was in his mind at the moment;
for he was not thinking of himself, but of her, and of how he could
succour and comfort her, and interpose his own true heart and life
between her and all trouble. It was at this moment that Lucy herself
entered the room; she came in softly, and surprised him in the
overflowing of his heart. She held out her hand to him as usual, and
smiled, perhaps less brightly, but that of course arose from the
circumstances of the house; and her voice was very measured and steady
when she spoke, less variable than of old. What was it she said? Mr
Wentworth unconsciously left the neighbourhood of that chair over
which he had been bending, which, to tell the truth, he had leaned his
head upon, lover-like, and perhaps even kissed for her sake, five
minutes before, and grew red and grew pale with a strange revulsion
and tumult of feeling. He could not tell what the difference was, or
what it meant. He only felt in an instant, with a sense of the change
that chilled him to the heart, as if somehow a wall of ice had risen
between them. He could see her through the transparent veil, and hear
her speak, and perceive the smile which cast no warmth of reflection
on him; but in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, everything in
heaven and earth was changed. Lucy herself, to her own consciousness,
trembled and faltered, and felt as if her voice and her looks must
betray an amount of emotion which she would have died rather than
show; but then Lucy had rehearsed this scene before, and knew all she
intended by it; whereas upon the Curate, in his little flush and
overflow of tenderness, it fell like a sudden earthquake, rending his
fair edifice of happiness asunder, and casting him out into unexpected
darkness. Sudden confusion, mortification, even a sense of injury and
bitterness, came swelling over his heart as he set a chair for her as
far away as possible from the corner in which he had been indulging
such vain and unwarrantable dreams.
"It happened yesterday," said Lucy; "we have not been quite able to
make out what was the cause; at least _I_ have not been able to find
it out. The clerks at the office say it was something about--but that
does not matter," she went on, with her sweet politeness: "you don't
care for the details. I sometimes fancy Mary knows more than she tells
me, and I think you are in her confidence, Mr Wentworth. But I am not
going to ask you any questions. The doctors say he is not suffering so
much as he seems to be. It is terrible to see him lie there not
knowing any of us," said Lucy, with a tremble in her voice.
"But you thought him better some time ago?" said the Curate, whose
words choked him, and who could not endure to speak.
"Yes, about six o'clock," said Lucy, "he tried to speak, and put Mary
in a great fright, I cannot tell why. Would you be good enough, Mr
Wentworth," she went on hastily, with a strange mixture of earnestness
and coldness, "if you know of anything she is keeping secret, to bid
her tell me? I am able to bear anything there may be to bear--surely
as well as she is, who has had no trouble," said Lucy, softly; and for
a moment she wavered in her fixed composure, and the wall of ice moved
as if it might fall.
"Nor you?" said the Curate, bending anxiously forward to look into her
eyes. He was inexpressibly moved and agitated by the inference, which
perhaps no listener less intensely concerned would have drawn from
what Lucy said. He could not bear that she should have any trouble
which he might not do something to relieve her of.
"Oh, no, nor I," said Lucy, quickly, and in that moment the softening
of tone disappeared entirely. "Mary will be pleased to see you, Mr
Wentworth. I will go and relieve her presently. Papa is asleep just
now, and I was down-stairs giving some directions when you came in. I
wanted to ask you to look after that poor woman at No. 10. She still
keeps living on, and I have not been able to see her today. She misses
me when I don't go," said Lucy, with a very little unconscious sigh.
"Would you see her, please, to-morrow, if you have time?"
"Yes, certainly," said the Curate; and then there was a pause. "Is
there nothing but this that you will let me do for you?" he asked,
trusting to his looks to show the heart, which at this moment he was
so much tempted to disclose to her, but dared not. And even in all her
trouble Lucy was too much of a woman to neglect an opportunity so
tempting.
"Thank you," she said. "Yes, there are those poor little Bertrams I
was to have seen today--if you would be so very good as to send some
one to them." Lucy lifted her eyes only as she ended this little
speech. She had meant it cruelly, to be sure, and the arrow had gone
home; but when she met the look that was fixed on her after her little
shaft was fired, Lucy's resolution faltered. The tears came rushing to
her eyes so hot and rapid that she could not restrain them. Some
trouble of her own gave poignancy to that outbreak of filial grief.
"Papa is so very ill!" she said, with a sob, as a scalding drop fell
upon her hand; and then got up suddenly, afraid of the consequences.
But the Curate, mortified, wounded, and disheartened as he was, had no
comprehension either of the bitterness or the relenting that was in
Lucy's thoughts. Rosa Elsworthy did not so much as occur to him in all
his confused wonderings. He went after her to the door, too much
perplexed and distressed to be indignant, as his first impulse was.
She turned half round, with a tremulous little inclination of her
head, which was all the good-night she could venture on. But the young
man was too much disturbed to permit this.
"You will give me your hand, surely," he said, taking it, and holding it
fast--a hand so different from that weak woman's hand that clung to
Gerald without any force to hold him, in Wentworth Rectory. Those
reluctant fingers, so firm and so soft, which scorned any struggle to
withdraw themselves, but remained passive in his with a more effectual
protest still against his grasp, wrung the very heart of the Perpetual
Curate. He let them go with a sigh of vexation and disappointment.
"Since that is all I can do, I will do it," he said--"that or anything
else." She had left him almost before the words were said; and it was in
a very disconsolate mood that he turned back into the deserted
drawing-room. To tell the truth, he forgot everything else for the
moment, asking himself what it could mean; and walked about stumbling
over the chairs, feeling all his little edifice of personal consolation
falling to the winds, and not caring much though everything else should
follow. He was in this state of mind when Miss Wodehouse came to him,
moving with noiseless steps, as everybody did in the stricken house.
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, I am so glad you have come," said that mild woman,
holding out both her hands to him. She was too much agitated to say
anything more. She was not equal to the emergency, or any emergency,
but sank down on a chair, and relieved herself by tears, while the
Curate stood anxiously by, waiting for what she had to say to him. "My
father is very ill," she said, like Lucy, through her crying; "I don't
know what good anybody can do; but thank God you've come home--now I
shall feel I have somebody to apply to, whatever happens," said poor
Miss Wodehouse, drying the eyes that were suffused again the next
moment. Her helpless distress did not overwhelm the spectator, like
Lucy's restrained trouble, but that was natural enough.
"Tell me about it," said Mr Wentworth; "the cause--can I guess at the
cause? it is something about your--"
"Oh hush! don't say his name," cried Miss Wodehouse. "Yes, yes, what
else could it be? Oh, Mr Wentworth, will you close the door, please,
and see that there's no one about. I dare not speak to you till I am
sure there's no one listening; not that I suspect anybody of
listening," said the distressed woman; "but one never knows. I am
afraid it is all my fault," she continued, getting up suddenly to see
that the windows were closed. "I ought to have sent him away, instead
of putting my trouble upon you; and now he is in greater danger than
ever. Oh, Mr Wentworth, I meant it for the best; and now, unless you
can help us, I don't know what I am to do."
"I cannot help you unless you tell me what is wrong," said the Curate,
making her sit down, and drawing a chair close to her. He took her
hand, by way of compelling her attention--a fair, soft hand, too, in
its restless, anxious way. He held it in a brotherly grasp, trying to
restore her to coherence, and induce her to speak.
"I don't know enough about business to tell you," she said. "He was in
danger when I threw him upon your charity; and oh, Mr Wentworth, thank
you, thank you a thousand times, for taking him in like a brother. If
Lucy only knew! But I don't feel as if I dared to tell her--and yet I
sometimes think I ought, for your--I mean for all our sakes. Yes, I will
try to explain it if I can; but I can't--indeed I don't understand,"
cried the poor lady, in despair. "It is something about a bill--it was
something about a bill before; and I thought I could soften papa, and
persuade him to be merciful; but it has all turned to greater
wretchedness and misery. The first one was paid, you know, and I thought
papa might relent;--but--don't cast us off, Mr Wentworth--don't go and
denounce him; you might, but you will not. It would be justice, I
acknowledge," cried the weeping woman; "but there is something higher
than justice even in this world. You are younger than I am, and so is
Lucy; but you are better than me, you young people, and you must be more
merciful too. I have seen you going among the poor people and among the
sick, and I could not have done it; and you won't forsake me--oh, Mr
Wentworth, you won't forsake me, when you know that my trouble is
greater than I can bear!"
"I will not forsake you," said the Curate; "but tell me what it is. I
have been summoned to Carlingford by my brother, and I am bewildered
and disturbed beyond what I can tell you--"
"By your brother?" said Miss Wodehouse, with her unfailing instinct of
interest in other people. "I hope there is no trouble in your own
family, Mr Wentworth. One gets so selfish when one is in great
distress. I hope he is not ill. It sounds as if there was comfort in
the very name of a brother," said the gentle woman, drying her tears,
"and I hope it is so with you; but it isn't always so. I hope you will
find he is better when you get home. I am very, very sorry to hear
that you are in trouble too."
Mr Wentworth got up from his chair with a sigh of impatience. "Will
nobody tell me what is the matter?" he said. "Mr Wodehouse is ill, and
there is some mysterious cause for it; and you are miserable, and
there is a cause for that too; and I am to do something to set things
right without knowing what is wrong. Will you not tell me? What is it?
Has your--"
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, don't say anybody's name--don't speak so loud.
There may be a servant in the staircase or something," cried Miss
Wodehouse. "I hear somebody coming now." She got up to listen, her
face growing white with panic, and went a few steps towards the door,
and then tottered into another chair, unable to command herself. A
certain sick thrill of apprehension came over the Curate, too, as he
hastened forward. He could not tell what he was afraid of, or whether
it was only the accumulated agitation of the day that made him weak.
Somebody was coming up the stairs, and towards the room, with a
footstep more careless than those stealthy steps with which all the
servants were stealing about the house. Whoever he was, he stopped at
the door a moment, and then looked cautiously in. When he saw the
figure of the Curate in the imperfect light, he withdrew his head
again as if deliberating with himself, and then, with a sudden rush,
came in, and shut the door after him. "Confound these servants,
they're always prowling about the house," said the new-comer. He was
an alarming apparition in his great beard and his shabbiness, and the
fugitive look he had. "I couldn't help it," he broke forth, with a
spontaneous burst of apology and self-defence. "I heard he was ill,
and I couldn't keep quiet. How is he? You don't mean to say _that's_
my fault. Molly, can't you speak to me? How could I tell I should find
you and the parson alone here, and all safe? I might have been risking
my--my--freedom--everything I care for; but when I heard he was ill, I
couldn't stay quiet. Is he dying?--what's the matter? Molly, can't you
speak?"
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, somebody will see him," cried Miss Wodehouse,
wringing her hands. "Oh Tom, Tom, how could you do it? Suppose
somebody was to come in--John or somebody. If you care for your own
life, oh, go away, go away!"
"They can't touch my life," said the stranger, sullenly. "I daresay
she doesn't know that. Nor the parson need not look superior--there
are more people concerned than I; but if I've risked everything to
hear, you may surely tell me how the old man is."
"If it was love that brought you," said poor Miss Wodehouse; "but oh,
Tom, you know I can't believe that. He is very, very ill; and it is
you that have done it," cried the mild woman, in a little gush of
passion--"you whom he has forgiven and forgiven till his heart is
sick. Go away, I tell you, go away from the house that you have
shamed. Oh, Mr Wentworth, take him away," she cried, turning to the
Curate with clasped hands--"tell him to hide--to fly--or he'll be
taken: he will not be forgiven this time; and if my father--if my dear
father dies--" But when she got so far her agitation interrupted her.
She kept her eyes upon the door with a wild look of terror, and waved
her helpless hands to warn the intruder away.
"If he dies, matters will be altered," said the stranger: "you and I
might change places then, for that matter. I'm going away from
Carlingford. I can't stay in such a wretched hole any longer. It's
gout or something?" said the man, with a tone of nature breaking
through his bravado--"it's not anything that has happened? Say so, and
I'll never trouble you more."
"Oh, if Lucy were to see him!" said poor Miss Wodehouse. The words
came unawares out of her heart without any thought; but the next thing
of which she was conscious was that the Perpetual Curate had laid his
hand on the stranger's arm, and was leading him reluctantly away. "I
will tell you all you want to know," said Mr Wentworth, "but not
here;" and with his hand upon the other's arm, moved him somehow with
an irresistible command, half physical, half mental, to the door.
Before Miss Wodehouse could say anything they were gone; before she
could venture to draw that long sighing breath of relief, she heard
the door below close, and the retreating footsteps in the garden. But
the sound, thankful though she was, moved her to another burst of
bitter tears. "To think I should have to tell a stranger to take him
away," she sobbed, out of the anguish of her heart; and sat weeping
over him with a relenting that wrung her tender spirit, without power
to move till the servant came up with alarmed looks to ask if any one
had come in in his absence. "Oh, no; it was only Mr Wentworth--and
a--gentleman who came to fetch him," said Miss Wodehouse. And she got
up, trembling as she was, and told John he had better shut up the
house and go to bed. "For I hope papa will have a better night, and
we must not waste our strength," she said, with a kind of woeful
smile, which was a wonder to John. He said Miss Wodehouse was a
tender-hearted one, to be sure, when he went down-stairs; but that was
no very novel piece of information to anybody there.
Meantime the Curate went down Grange Lane with that strange lodger of
Mrs Hadwin's, who had broken thus into Miss Wodehouse's solitude. They
did not say much to each other as they went sullenly side by side down
the silent road; for the stranger, whose feelings were not complicated
by any very lively sense of gratitude, looked upon his companion as a
kind of jailer, and had an unspeakable grudge against the man who
exercised so calm an ascendancy over him; though to be sure it might
have been difficult to resist the moral force of the Curate of St
Roque's, who was three inches taller than himself, and had the
unbroken vigour of youth and health to back him. As for Mr Wentworth,
he went on without speaking, with a bitterness in his heart not to be
expressed. His own personal stronghold of happiness and consolation
had shattered in pieces in that evening's interview; and as he went to
his own house he asked himself what he should find in it? This
wretched man, with whose sins he had been hitherto but partially
acquainted; and Jack, with whom the other had heaven knew what
horrible connection. Should he find a den of thieves where he had left
only high thoughts and lofty intentions? It was thus, after his three
days' absence, that he returned home.