When Mr Wentworth arrived in the little vestry at St Roque's to robe
himself for the approaching service, it was after a long and tough
contest with Mr Wodehouse's partner, which had to a great extent
exhausted his energies. Mr Wodehouse was the leading attorney in
Carlingford, the chief family solicitor in the county, a man looked upon
with favourable eyes even by the great people as being himself a cadet
of a county family. His partner, Mr Waters, was altogether a different
description of man. He was much more clever, and a good deal more like a
gentleman, but he had not a connection in the world, and had fought his
way up to prosperity through many a narrow, and perhaps, if people spoke
true, many a dirty avenue to fortune. He was very glad of the chance
which brought his partner's reputation and credit thus under his power,
and he was by no means disposed to deal gently with the prodigal son.
That is to say, he was quite disinclined to let the family out of his
clutches easily, or to consent to be silent and "frustrate the ends of
justice" for anything else than an important equivalent. Mr Wentworth
had much ado to restrain his temper while the wily attorney talked about
his conscience; for the Curate was clear-sighted enough to perceive at
the first glance that Mr Waters had no real intention of proceeding to
extremities. The lawyer would not pledge himself to anything,
notwithstanding all Mr Wentworth's arguments. "Wodehouse himself was of
the opinion that the law should take its course," he said; but out of
respect for his partner he might wait a few days to see what turn his
illness would take. "I confess that I am not adapted for my profession,
Mr Wentworth. My feelings overcome me a great deal too often," said the
sharp man of business, looking full into the Curate's eyes, "and while
the father is dying I have not the heart to proceed against the son; but
I pledge myself to nothing--recollect, to nothing." And with this and a
very indignant mind Mr Wentworth had been forced to come away. His
thoughts were occupied with the contrarieties of the world as he
hastened along to St Roque's--how one man had to bear another's burdens
in every station and capacity of life, and how another man triumphed and
came to success by means of the misfortunes of his friends. It was hard
to tell what made the difference, or how humankind got divided into
these two great classes, for possibly enough the sharp attorney was as
just in his way as the Curate; but Mr Wentworth got no more satisfaction
in thinking of it than the speculatists generally have when they
investigate this strange, wayward, fantastical humanity which is never
to be calculated upon. He came into the little vestry of St Roque's,
which was a stony little room with a groined roof and windows too
severely English in their character to admit any great amount of light,
with a sensation of fatigue and discouragement very natural to a man who
had been interfering in other people's affairs. There was some comfort
in the litany which he was just going to say, but not much comfort in
any of the human individuals who would come into Mr Wentworth's mind as
he paused in the midst of the suffrage for "sick persons" and for those
who "had erred and were deceived," that the worshippers might whisper
into God's ear the names for which their hearts were most concerned. The
young priest sighed heavily as he put on his surplice, pondering all the
obstinate selfishness and strange contradictions of men; and it was only
when he heard a rather loud echo to his breath of weariness that he
looked up and saw Elsworthy, who was contemplating him with a very
curious expression of face. The clerk started a little on being
discovered, and began to look over all the choristers' books and set
them in readiness, though, indeed, there were no choristers on Fridays,
but only the ladies, who chanted the responses a great deal more
sweetly, and wore no surplices. Thinking of that, it occurred to Mr
Wentworth how much he would miss the round full notes which always
betrayed Lucy's presence to him even when he did not see her; and he
forgot Elsworthy, and sighed again without thinking of any comment which
might be made upon the sound.
"I'm sorry to see, sir, as you aint in your usual good spirits?" said
that observant spectator, coming closer up to "his clergyman."
Elsworthy's eyes were full of meanings which Mr Wentworth could not,
and had no wish to, decipher.
"I am perfectly well, thank you," said the Perpetual Curate, with his
coldest tone. He had become suspicious of the man, he could scarcely
tell why.
"There's a deal of people in church this morning," said the clerk; and
then he came closer still, and spoke in a kind of whisper. "About that
little matter as we was speaking of, Mr Wentworth--that's all
straight, sir, and there aint no occasion to be vexed. She came back
this morning," said Elsworthy, under his breath.
"Who came back this morning?" asked the Curate, with a little
surprise. His thoughts had been so much with Lucy that no one else
occurred to him at the moment; and even while he asked the question,
his busy fancy began to wonder where she could have been, and what
motive could have taken her away?
"I couldn't mean nobody but Rosa, as I talked to you about last
night," said Elsworthy. "She's come back, sir, as you wished; and I
_have_ heard as she was in Carlingford last night just afore you come,
Mr Wentworth, when I thought as she was far enough off; which you'll
allow, sir, whoever it was she come to see, it wasn't the right thing,
nor what her aunt and me had reason to expect."
The Curate of St Roque's said "Pshaw!" carelessly to himself. He was not
at all interested in Rosa Elsworthy. Instead of making any answer, he
drew on the scarlet band of his hood, and marched away gravely into the
reading-desk, leaving the vestry-door open behind him for the clerk to
follow. The little dangers that harassed his personal footsteps had not
yet awakened so much as an anxiety in his mind. Things much more serious
preoccupied his thoughts. He opened his prayer-book with a consciousness
of the good of it which comes to men only now and then. At Oxford, in
his day, Mr Wentworth had entertained his doubts like others, and like
most people was aware that there were a great many things in heaven and
earth totally unexplainable by any philosophy. But he had always been
more of a man than a thinker, even before he became a high Anglican; and
being still much in earnest about most things he had to do with, he
found great comfort just at this moment, amid all his perplexities, in
the litany he was saying. He was so absorbed in it, and so full of that
appeal out of all troubles and miseries to the God who cannot be
indifferent to His creatures, that he was almost at the last Amen before
he distinguished that voice, which of all voices was most dear to him.
The heart of the young man swelled, when he heard it, with a mingled
thrill of sympathy and wounded feeling. She had not left her father's
sick-bed to see _him_, but she _had_ found time to run down the sunny
road to St Roque's to pray for the sick and the poor. When he knelt down
in the reading-desk at the end of the service, was it wrong, instead of
more abstract supplications, that the young priest said over and over,
"God bless her," in an outburst of pity and tenderness? And he did not
try to overtake her on the road, as he might have done had his heart
been less deeply touched, but went off with abstracted looks to
Wharfside, where all the poor people were very glad to see him, and
where his absence was spoken of as if he had been three months instead
of three days away. It was like going back a century or two into
primitive life, to go into "the district," where civilisation did not
prevail to any very distressing extent, and where people in general
spoke their minds freely. But even when he came out of No. 10, where the
poor woman still kept on living, Mr Wentworth was made aware of his
private troubles; for on the opposite side of the way, where there was a
little bit of vacant ground, the Rector was standing with some of the
schismatics of Wharfside, planning how to place the iron church which,
it was said, he meant to establish in the very heart of the "district."
Mr Morgan took off his hat very stiffly to the Perpetual Curate, who
returned up Prickett's Lane with a heightened colour and quickened
pulse. A man must be an angel indeed who can see his work taken out of
his hands and betray no human emotion. Mr Wentworth went into
Elsworthy's, as he went back, to write a forcible little note to the
Rector on the subject before he returned home. It was Rosa who handed
him the paper he wanted, and he gave her a little nod without looking at
her. But when he had closed his note, and laid it on the counter to be
delivered, the Curate found her still standing near, and looked at the
little blushing creature with some natural admiration. "So you have come
back," he said; "but mind you don't go into Grange Lane any more after
dark, little Rosa." When he had left the shop and finished this little
matter, he bethought himself of his aunts, whom he had not seen since he
returned. Aunt Dora was not at her usual sentinel window when he crossed
Grange Lane towards their garden-door; and the door itself was open, and
some one from the Blue Boar was carrying in a large portmanteau. Mr
Wentworth's curiosity was strangely excited by the sight. He said, "Who
has come, Lewis?" to Miss Wentworth's man, who stood in the hall
superintending the arrival, but ran up-stairs without waiting for any
answer. He felt by instinct that the visitor was some one likely to
increase the confusion of affairs, and perplex matters more and more to
himself.
But even this presentiment did not prepare him for the astonishing sight
which met his eyes when he entered the drawing-room. There the three
ladies were all assembled, regarding with different developments of
interest the new-comer, who had thrown himself, half-reclining, on a
sofa. Aunt Dora was sitting by him with a bottle of eau-de-Cologne in
her hand, for this meeting had evidently gone to the heart of the
returned prodigal. Aunt Dora was ready to have sacrificed all the veal
in the country in honour of Jack's repentance; and the Curate stood
outside upon the threshold, looking at the scene with the strangest
half-angry, half-comical realisation of the state of mind of the elder
brother in the parable. He had himself been rather found fault with,
excused, and tolerated, among his relations; but Jack had at once become
master of the position, and taken possession of all their sympathies. Mr
Wentworth stood gazing at them, half-amused, and yet more angry than
amused--feeling, with a little indignation, as was natural, that the
pretended penitence of the clever sinner was far more effective and
interesting than his own spotless loyalty and truth. To be sure, they
were only three old ladies--three old aunts--and he smiled at the sight;
but though he smiled, he did not like it, and perhaps was more abrupt
than usual in his salutations. Miss Leonora was seated at her
writing-table, busy with her correspondence. The question of the new
gin-palace was not yet decided, and she had been in the middle of a
letter of encouragement to her agents on the subject, reminding them
that, even though the licence was granted, the world would still go on
all the same, and that the worst possibilities must be encountered,
when Jack the prodigal made his appearance, with all the tokens of
reformation and repentance about him, to throw himself upon the
Christian charity of his relations. A penitent sinner was too tempting a
bait for even Miss Leonora's good sense to withstand, and she had
postponed her letter-writing to hear his explanations. But Jack had told
his story by this time, and had explained how much he wanted to
withdraw out of the world in which he had been led astray, and how sick
he was of all its whirl of temptations and disappointment; and Miss
Leonora had returned to her letter when her younger nephew arrived. As
for Miss Wentworth, she was seated placidly in her usual easy-chair,
smiling with equable smiles upon both the young men, and lifting her
beautiful old cheek for Frank to kiss, just as she had lifted it to
Jack. It was Miss Dora who was most shaken out of her allegiance; she
who had always made Frank her special charge. Though she had wept
herself into a day's headache on his behalf so short a time ago, aunt
Dora for a moment had allowed the more effusive prodigal to supersede
Frank. Instead of taking him into her arms as usual, and clinging to
him, she only put the hand that held the eau-de-Cologne over his
shoulder as she kissed him. Jack, who had been so dreadfully,
inexpressibly wicked, and who had come back to his aunts to be converted
and restored to his right mind, was more interesting than many curates.
She sat down again by her penitent as soon as she had saluted his
brother; and even Miss Leonora, when she paused in her letter, turned
her eyes towards Jack.
"So Gerald is actually going over to Rome," said the strong-minded
aunt. "I never expected anything else. I had a letter from Louisa
yesterday, asking me to use my influence: as if I had any influence
over your brother! If a silly wife was any justification for a man
making an idiot of himself, Gerald might be excused; but I suppose the
next thing we shall hear of will be that you have followed him, Frank.
Did you hear anything further about Janet and that lover of hers? In a
large family like ours there is always something troublesome going
on," said Miss Leonora. "I am not surprised to hear of your father's
attack. _My_ father had a great many attacks, and lived to eighty; but
he had few difficulties with the female part of his household," she
continued, with a grim little smile--for Miss Leonora rather piqued
herself upon her exemption from any known sentimental episode, even
in her youth.
"Dear Jack's return will make up for a great deal," said aunt Dora.
"Oh, Frank, my dear, your brother has made us all so happy. He has
just been telling us that he means to give up all his racing and
betting and wickedness; and when he has been with us a little, and
learned to appreciate a domestic circle--" said poor Miss Dora,
putting her handkerchief to her eyes. She was so much overcome that
she could not finish the sentence. But she put her disengaged hand
upon Jack's arm and patted it, and in her heart concluded that as soon
as the blanket was done for Louisa's bassinet, she would work him a
pair of slippers, which should endear more and more to him the
domestic circle, and stimulate the new-born virtue in his repentant
heart.
"I don't know what Jack's return may do," said Mr Wentworth, "but I
hope you don't imagine it was Gerald who caused my father's illness.
_You_ know better, at least," said the indignant Curate, looking at
the hero on the sofa. That interesting reprobate lifted his eyes with
a covert gleam of humour to the unresponsive countenance of his
brother, and then he stroked his silky beard and sighed.
"My dear aunt, Frank is right," said Jack, with a melancholy voice. "I
have not concealed from you that my father has great reason to be
offended with me. I have done very much the reverse of what I ought to
have done. I see even Frank can't forgive me; and I don't wonder at
it," said the prodigal, "though I have done him no harm that I know
of;" and again the heir of the Wentworths sighed, and covered his face
for a moment with his hand.
"Oh, Frank," cried Miss Dora, with streaming eyes--"oh, my dear
boy!--isn't there joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth? You're
not going to be the wicked elder brother that grudged the prodigal his
welcome--you're not going to give way to jealousy, Frank?"
"Hold your tongue, Dora," said the iron-grey sister; "I daresay Frank
knows a great deal better than you do; but I want to know about
Gerald, and what is to be done. If he goes to Rome, of course you will
take Wentworth Rectory; so it will not be an unmingled evil," said
Miss Leonora, biting her pen, and throwing a keen glance at the Curate
of St Roque's, "especially as you and we differ so entirely in our
views. I could not consent to appoint anybody to Skelmersdale, even if
poor Mr Shirley were to die, who did not preach the Gospel; and it
would be sad for you to spend all your life in a Perpetual Curacy,
where you could have no income, nor ever hope to be able to marry,"
she continued steadily, with her eyes fixed upon her nephew. "Of
course, if you had entered the Church for the love of the work, it
would be a different matter," said the strong-minded aunt. "But that
sort of thing seems to have gone out of fashion. I am sorry about
Gerald--very sorry; but after what I saw of him, I am not surprised;
and it is a comfort to one's mind to think that you will be provided
for, Frank." Miss Leonora wrote a few words of the letter as she
finished this speech. What she was saying in that epistle was (in
reference to the gin-palace) that all discouragements were sent by
God, and that, no doubt, His meaning was, that we should work all the
harder to make way against them. After putting down which encouraging
sentiment, she raised her eyes again, and planted her spear in her
nephew's bosom with the greatest composure in the world.
"My Perpetual Curacy suits me very well," said Mr Wentworth, with a
little pride; "and there is a good deal to do in Carlingford. However,
I did not come here to talk about that. The Rector is going to put up
an iron church in my district," said the young man, who was rather
glad of a subject which permitted a little of his indignation to
escape. "It is very easy to interfere with other people's work." And
then he paused, not choosing to grumble to an unsympathetic audience.
To feel that nobody cares about your feelings, is better than all the
rules of self-control. The Perpetual Curate stopped instinctively with
a dignified restraint, which would have been impossible to him under
other circumstances. It was no merit of his, but he reaped the
advantage of it all the same.
"But oh, my dear," said Miss Dora, "what a comfort to think of what St
Paul says--'Whether it be for the right motive or not, Christ is still
preached.' And one never knows what chance word may touch a heart,"
said the poor little woman, shaking her limp curls away from her
cheeks. "It was you being offended with him that made dear Jack think
of coming to us; and what a happiness it is to think that he sees the
error of his ways!" cried poor Miss Dora, drying her tears. "And oh,
Frank, my dear boy, I trust you will take warning by your brother, and
not run into temptation," continued the anxious aunt, remembering all
her troubles. "If you were to go wrong, it would take away all the
pleasure of life."
"That is just what I was thinking," said aunt Cecilia from her
easy-chair.
"For, oh, Frank, my dear," said Miss Dora, much emboldened by this
support, "you must consider that you are a clergyman, and there are a
great many things that are wrong in a clergyman that would not matter in
another man. Oh, Leonora, if you would speak to him, he would mind you,"
cried the poor lady; "for you know a clergyman is quite different;" and
Miss Dora again stopped short, and the three aunts looked at the
bewildered Curate, who, for his part, sat gazing at them without an idea
what they could mean.
"What have I been doing that would be right in another man?" he said,
with a smile which was slightly forced; and then he turned to Jack, who
was laughing softly under his breath, and stroking his silky beard. The
elder brother was highly amused by the situation altogether, but Frank,
as was natural, did not see it in the same light. "What have you been
saying?" said the indignant Curate; and his eyes gave forth a sudden
light which frightened Miss Dora, and brought her in to the rescue.
"Oh, Frank, he has not been saying anything," cried that troubled
woman; "it is only what we have heard everywhere. Oh, my dear boy, it
is only for your good I ever thought of speaking. There is nobody in
the world to whom your welfare is so precious," said poor Miss Dora.
"Oh, Frank, if you and your brother were to have any difference, I
should think it all my fault--and I always said you did not mean
anything," she said, putting herself and her eau-de-Cologne between
the two, and looking as if she were about to throw herself into the
Curate's arms. "Oh, Frank, dear, don't blame any one else--it is my
fault!" cried aunt Dora, with tears; and the tender-hearted foolish
creature kept between them, ready to rush in if any conflict should
occur, which was a supposition much resented by the Curate of St
Roque's.
"Jack and I have no intention of fighting, I daresay," he said, drawing
his chair away with some impatience; and Jack lay back on the sofa and
stroked his beard, and looked on with the greatest composure while poor
Miss Dora exhausted her alarm. "It is all my fault," sobbed aunt Dora;
"but, oh, my dear boy, it was only for your good; and I always said you
did not mean anything," said the discomfited peacemaker. All this,
though it was highly amusing to the prodigal, was gall and bitterness to
the Perpetual Curate. It moved him far more deeply than he could have
imagined it possible for anything spoken by his aunt Dora to move him.
Perhaps there is something in human nature which demands to be
comprehended, even where it is aware that comprehension is impossible;
and it wounded him in the most unreasonable way to have it supposed that
he was likely to get into any quarrel with his brother, and to see Jack
thus preferred to himself.
"Don't be a fool," said Miss Leonora, sharply: "I wish you would
confine yourself to Louisa's bassinet, and talk of things you can
understand. I hope Frank knows what he is doing better than a set of
old women. At the same time, Frank," said Miss Leonora, rising and
leading the way to the door, "I want to say a word to you. Don't
think you are above misconception. Most people believe a lie more
readily than the truth. Dora is a fool," said the elder sister,
pausing, when she had led her nephew outside the drawing-room door,
"but so are most people; and I advise you to be careful, and not to
give occasion for any gossip; otherwise, I don't say _I_ disapprove of
your conduct." She had her pen in one hand, and held out the other to
him, dismissing him; and even this added to the painful feeling in the
Curate's heart.
"I should hope not," he said, somewhat stiffly; "good-bye--my conduct is
not likely to be affected by any gossip, and I don't see any need for
taking precautions against imaginary danger." Miss Leonora thought her
nephew looked very ungracious as he went away. She said to herself that
Frank had a great deal of temper, and resembled his mother's family more
than the Wentworths, as she went back to her writing-table; and though
she could not disapprove of him, she felt vexed somehow at his rectitude
and his impatience of advice; whereas, Jack, poor fellow! who had been a
great sinner, was, according to all appearance, a great penitent also,
and a true Wentworth, with all the family features. Such were Miss
Leonora's thoughts as she went back to finish her letters, and to
encourage her agents in her London district to carry on the good work.
"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform," she wrote
apropos of the gin-palace, and set very distinctly before her spiritual
retainers all that Providence might intend by this unexpected hindrance;
and so quite contented herself about her nephew, whose views on this and
many other subjects were so different from her own.
Meanwhile Mr Wentworth went about the rest of the day's work in a not
unusual, but far from pleasant, frame of mind. When one suddenly feels
that the sympathy upon which one calculated most surely has been
withdrawn, the shock is naturally considerable. It might not be
anything very great while it lasted, but still one feels the
difference when it is taken away. Lucy had fallen off from him; and
even aunt Dora had ceased to feel his concerns the first in the world.
He smiled at himself for the wound he felt; but that did not remove
the sting of it. After the occupations of the day were over, when at
last he was going home, and when his work and the sense of fatigue
which accompanied it had dulled his mind a little, the Curate felt
himself still dwelling on the same matter, contemplating it in a
half-comic point of view, as proud men are not unapt to contemplate
anything that mortifies them. He began to realise, in a humorous way,
his own sensations as he stood at the drawing-room door and recognised
the prodigal on the sofa; and then a smile dawned upon his lip as he
thought once more of the prodigal's elder brother, who regarded that
business with unsympathetic eyes and grudged the supper. And from that
he went into a half-professional line of thought, and imagined to
himself, half smiling, how, if he had been Dr Cumming or the minister
of Salem Chapel, he might have written a series of sermons on the
unappreciated characters of Scripture, beginning with that virtuous
uninteresting elder brother; from which suggestion, though he was not
the minister of Salem nor Dr Cumming, it occurred to the Perpetual
Curate to follow out the idea, and to think of such generous careless
souls as Esau, and such noble unfortunates as the peasant-king, the
mournful magnificent Saul--people not generally approved of, or
enrolled among the martyrs or saints. He was pursuing this kind of
half-reverie, half-thought, when he reached his own house. It was
again late and dark, for he had dined in the mean time, and was going
home now to write his sermon, in which, no doubt, some of these very
ideas were destined to reappear. He opened the garden-gate with his
latch-key, and paused, with an involuntary sense of the beauty and
freshness of the night, as soon as he got within the sheltering walls.
The stars were shining faint and sweet in the summer blue, and all
the shrubs and the grass breathing forth that subdued breath of
fragrance and conscious invisible life which gives so much sweetness
to the night. He thought he heard whispering voices, as he paused
glancing up at the sky; and then from the side-walk he saw a little
figure run, and heard a light little footstep fluttering towards the
door which he had just closed. Mr Wentworth started and went after
this little flying figure with some anxiety. Two or three of his long
strides brought him up with the escaping visitor, as she fumbled in
her agitation over the handle of the door. "You have come again,
notwithstanding what I said to you? but you must not repeat it, Rosa,"
said the Curate; "no good can come of these meetings. I will tell your
uncle, if I ever find you here again."
"Oh no, no, please don't," cried the girl; "but, after all, I don't
mind," she said, with more confidence: "he would think it was
something very different;" and Rosa raised her eyes to the Curate's
face with a coquettish inquiry. She could not divest herself of the
thought that Mr Wentworth was jealous, and did not like to have her
come there for anybody but himself.
"If you were not such a child, I should be very angry," said the
Curate; "as it is, I _am_ very angry with the person who deludes you
into coming. Go home, child," he said, opening the door to her, "and
remember I will not allow you on any pretext to come here again."
His words were low, and perhaps Rosa did not care much to listen; but
there was quite light enough to show them both very plainly, as he
stood at the door and she went out. Just then the Miss Hemmings were
going up Grange Lane from a little tea-party with their favourite
maid, and all their eyes about them. They looked very full in Mr
Wentworth's face, and said How d'ye do? as they passed the door; and
when they had passed it, they looked at each other with eyes which
spoke volumes. Mr Wentworth shut the door violently with irrepressible
vexation and annoyance when he encountered that glance. He made no
farewells, nor did he think of taking care of Rosa on the way home as
he had done before. He was intensely annoyed and vexed, he could not
tell how. And this was how it happened that the last time she was seen
in Carlingford, Rosa Elsworthy was left standing by herself in the
dark at Mr Wentworth's door.