"I will do what I can for you," said Mr Morgan; "yours is a very hard
case, as you say. Of course it would not do for me to give any
opinion--but such a thing shall not occur in Carlingford, while I am
here, without being looked into," said the Rector, with dignity; "of
that you may be sure."
"I don't want no more nor justice," said Elsworthy--"no more nor
justice. I'm a man as has always been respected, and never interfered
with nobody as didn't interfere with me. The things I've stood from
my clergyman, I wouldn't have stood from no man living. The way as
he'd talk, sir, of them as was a deal better than himself! We was a
happy family afore Mr Wentworth came nigh of us. Most folks in
Carlingford knows me. There wasn't a more industrious family in
Carlingford, though I say it as shouldn't, nor one as was more
content, or took things more agreeable, afore Mr Wentworth come to put
all wrong."
"Mr Wentworth has been here for five years," said the Rector's wife,
who was present at this interview; "have things been going wrong for
all that time?"
"I couldn't describe to nobody what I've put up with," said the clerk
of St Roque's, evading the question. "He hadn't the ways of such
clergymen as I've been used to. Twice the pay wouldn't have made up
for what I've suffered in my feelings; and I ask you, sir, is this how
it's all to end? My little girl's gone," cried Elsworthy, rising into
hoarse earnestness--"my little girl as was so sweet, and as everybody
took notice on. She's gone, and I don't know as I'll ever see her
again; and I can't get no satisfaction one way or another; and I ask
you, sir, is a villain as could do such a thing to hold up his head in
the town, and go on the same as ever? I aint a man as is contrairy, or
as goes agin' my superiors; but it's driving me mad, that's what it's
doing," said Elsworthy, wiping the moisture from his forehead. The man
was trembling and haggard, changed even in his looks--his eyes were
red with passion and watching, and looked like the eyes of a wild
beast lying in wait for its prey. "I can't say as I've ever slept an
hour since it happened," he cried; "and as for my missis, it's
a-killing of her. We aint shut up, because we've got to live all the
same; and because, if the poor thing come back, there's always an open
door. But I'll have justice, if I was to die for it!" cried Elsworthy.
"I don't ask no more than justice. If it aint to be had one way, I'll
have it another. I'll set the police on him--I will. When a man's
drove wild, he aint answerable for what he's a-doing; and to see him
a-walking about Carlingford, and a-holding up his head, is a thing as
I won't stand no longer, not if it was to be my ruin. I'm as good as
ruined now, and I don't care." He broke off short with these words,
and sat down abruptly on the chair Thomas had placed for him in front
of the Rector's table. Up to this moment he had been standing, in his
vehemence and agitation, without taking advantage of the courtesy
accorded to his misfortune; now the poor man sat down by way of
emphasis, and began to polish his hat round and round with his
trembling hands.
As for Mr Morgan, he, on the contrary, got up and walked instinctively
to the fireplace, and stood there with his back to the empty grate,
contemplating the world in general with a troubled countenance, as was
usual. Not to speak of his prejudice against Mr Wentworth, the Rector
was moved by the sight of Elsworthy's distress; but then his wife, who
unluckily had brought her needlework into the library on this particular
morning, and who was in the interest of the Curate of St Roque's, was
seated watchful by the window, occasionally looking up, and entirely
cognisant, as Mr Morgan was aware, of everything that happened. The
Rector was much embarrassed to feel himself thus standing between the
two parties. "Yours is a very hard case--but it is necessary to proceed
with caution, for, after all, there is not much proof," he said,
faltering a little. "My dear, it is a pity to detain you from your
walk," Mr Morgan continued, after a momentary pause, and looked with a
flush of consciousness at his wife, whose absence would have been such a
relief to him. Mrs Morgan looked up with a gracious smile.
"You are not detaining me, William--I am very much interested," said
the designing woman, and immediately began to arrange and put in order
what the Rector knew by experience to be a long piece of work, likely
to last her an hour at least. Mr Morgan uttered a long breath, which
sounded like a little snort of despair.
"It is very difficult to know what to do," said the Rector, shifting
uneasily upon the hearthrug, and plunging his hands into the depths of
his pockets. "If you could name anybody you would like to refer it
to--but being a brother clergyman--"
"A man as conducts himself like that, didn't ought to be a clergyman,
sir," cried Elsworthy. "I'm one as listened to him preaching on Sunday,
and could have jumped up and dragged him out of the pulpit, to hear him
a-discoursing as if he wasn't a bigger sinner nor any there. I aint safe
to stand it another Sunday. I'd do something as I should be sorry for
after. I'm asking justice, and no more." With these words Elsworthy got
up again, still turning round in his hands the unlucky hat, and turned
his person, though not his eyes, towards Mrs Morgan. "No man could be
more partial to his clergyman nor I was," he said hoarsely. "There was
never a time as I wasn't glad to see him. He came in and out as if it
belonged to him, and I had no more thought as he was meaning any harm
than the babe unborn; but a man as meddles with an innocent girl aint
nothing but a black-hearted villain!" cried Elsworthy, with a gleam out
of his red eyes; "and I don't believe as anybody would take his part as
knew all. I put my confidence in the Rector, as is responsible for the
parish," he went on, facing round again: "not to say but what it's
natural for them as are Mr Wentworth's friends to take his part--but
I'll have justice, wherever it comes from. It's hard work to go again'
any lady as I've a great respect for, and wouldn't cross for the world;
but it aint in reason that I should be asked to bear it and not say
nothing; and I'll have justice, if I should die for it," said Elsworthy.
He turned from one to another as he spoke, but kept his eyes upon his
hat, which he smoothed and smoothed as if his life depended on it. But
for the reality of his excitement, his red eyes, and hoarse voice, he
would have been a ludicrous figure, standing as he did in the middle of
Mr Morgan's library, veering round, first to one side and then to the
other, with his stooping head and ungainly person. As for the Rector, he
too kept looking at his wife with a very troubled face.
"It is difficult for me to act against a brother clergyman," said Mr
Morgan; "but I am very sorry for you, Elsworthy--very sorry; if you
could name, say, half-a-dozen gentlemen--"
"But don't you think," said the Rector's wife, interposing, "that you
should inquire first whether there is any evidence? It would make you
all look very ridiculous if you got up an inquiry and found no proof
against Mr Wentworth. Is it likely he would do such a thing all at
once without showing any signs of wickedness beforehand--is it
possible? To be sorry is quite a different thing, but I don't see--"
"Ladies don't understand such matters," said the Rector, who had been
kept at bay so long that he began to get desperate. "I beg your
pardon, my dear, but it is not a matter for you to discuss. We shall
take good care that there is plenty of evidence," said the perplexed
man--"I mean, before we proceed to do anything," he added, growing
very red and confused. When Mr Morgan caught his wife's eye, he got as
nearly into a passion as was possible for so good a man. "You know
what I mean," he said, in his peremptory way; "and, my dear, you will
forgive me for saying this is not a matter to be discussed before a
lady." When he had uttered this bold speech, the Rector took a few
little walks up and down the room, not caring, however, to look at his
wife. He was ashamed of the feeling he had that her absence would set
him much more at ease with Elsworthy, but still could not help being
conscious that it was so. He did not say anything more, but he walked
up and down the room with sharp short steps, and betrayed his
impatience very manifestly. As for Mrs Morgan, who was a sensible
woman, she saw that the time had come for her to retire from the
field.
"I think the first thing to be done is to try every possible means of
finding the girl," she said, getting up from her seat; "but I have no
doubt what you decide upon will be the best. You will find me in the
drawing-room when you want me, William." Perhaps her absence for the
first moment was not such a relief to her husband as he had expected.
The mildness of her parting words made it very apparent that she did
not mean to take offence; and he perceived suddenly, at a glance, that
he would have to tell her all he was going to do, and encounter her
criticism single-handed, which was rather an appalling prospect to the
Rector. Mrs Morgan, for her part, went up-stairs not without a little
vexation, certainly, but with a comforting sense of the opportunity
which awaited her. She felt that, in his unprotected position, as soon
as she left him, the Rector would conduct himself rashly, and that her
time was still to come.
The Rector went back to the hearthrug when his wife left the room, but
in the heat of his own personal reflections he did not say anything to
Elsworthy, who still stood smoothing his hat in his hand. On the
whole, Mr Morgan was rather aggravated for the moment by the unlucky
cause of this little encounter, and was not half so well disposed
towards Mr Wentworth's enemy as half an hour before, when he
recognised his wife as the champion of the Curate, and felt controlled
by her presence; for the human and even the clerical mind has its
impulses of perversity. He began to get very impatient of Elsworthy's
hat, and the persistent way in which he worked at it with his hands.
"I suppose you would not be so certain about it if you had not
satisfactory evidence?" he said, turning abruptly, and even a little
angrily, upon the supplicant; for Mr Morgan naturally resented his own
temper and the little semi-quarrel he had got into upon the third
person who was the cause of all.
"Sir," said Elsworthy, with eagerness, "it aint no wonder to me as the
lady takes Mr Wentworth's part. A poor man don't stand no chance
against a young gentleman as has had every advantage. It's a thing as
I'm prepared for, and it don't have no effect upon me. A lady as is so
respected and thought a deal of both in town and country--"
"I was not speaking of my wife," said the Rector, hastily, "don't you
think you had better put down your hat? I think you said it was on
Friday it occurred. It will be necessary to take down the facts in a
business-like way," said Mr Morgan, drawing his chair towards the table
and taking up his pen. This was how the Rector was occupied when Thomas
announced the most unexpected of all possible visitors, Mr Proctor, who
had been Mr Morgan's predecessor in Carlingford. Thomas announced his
old master with great solemnity as "the late Rector"--a title which
struck the present incumbent with a sense of awe not unnatural in the
circumstances. He jumped up from his chair and let his pen fall out of
his startled fingers when his old friend came in. They had eaten many a
good dinner together in the revered hall of All-Souls, and as the
familiar countenance met his eyes, perhaps a regretful thought of that
Elysium stole across the mind of the late Fellow, who had been so glad
to leave the sacred brotherhood, and marry, and become as other men. He
gave but a few hurried words of surprise and welcome to his visitor, and
then, with a curious counterpoise of sentiment, sent him up-stairs to
see "my wife," feeling, even while half envious of him, a kind of
superiority and half contempt for the man who was not a Rector and
married, but had given up both these possibilities. When he sent him
up-stairs to see "my wife," Mr Morgan looked after the elderly celibate
with a certain pity. One always feels more inclined to take the simple
view of any matter--to stand up for injured innocence, and to right the
wronged--when one feels one's self better off than one's neighbours. A
reverse position is apt to detract from the simplicity of one's
conceptions, and to suggest two sides to the picture. When Mr Proctor
was gone, the Rector addressed himself with great devotion to Elsworthy
and his evidence. It could not be doubted, at least, that the man was
in earnest, and believed what he said; and things unquestionably looked
rather ugly for Mr Wentworth. Mr Morgan took down all about the Curate's
untimely visit to Elsworthy on the night when he took Rosa home; and
when he came to the evidence of the Miss Hemmings, who had seen the
Curate talking to the unfortunate little girl at his own door the last
time she was seen in Carlingford, the Rector shook his head with a
prolonged movement, half of satisfaction, half of regret; for, to be
sure, he had made up his mind beforehand who the culprit was, and it was
to a certain extent satisfactory to have his opinion confirmed.
"This looks very bad, very bad, I am sorry to say," said Mr Morgan;
"for the unhappy young man's own sake, an investigation is absolutely
necessary. As for you, Elsworthy, everybody must be sorry for you.
Have you no idea where he could have taken the poor girl?--that is,"
said the uncautious Rector, "supposing that he is guilty--of which I
am afraid there does not seem much doubt."
"There aint no doubt," said Elsworthy; "there aint nobody else as
could have done it. Just afore my little girl was took away, sir, Mr
Wentworth went off of a sudden, and it was said as he was a-going home
to the Hall. I was a-thinking of sending a letter anonymous, to ask if
it was known what he was after. I read in the papers the other day as
his brother was a-going over to Rome. There don't seem to be none o'
them the right sort; which it's terrible for two clergymen. I was
thinking of dropping a bit of a note anonymous--"
"No--no--no," said the Rector, "that would never do; nothing of that
sort, Elsworthy. If you thought it likely she was there, the proper
thing would be to go and inquire; nothing anonymous--no, no; that is a
thing I could not possibly countenance," said Mr Morgan. He pushed
away his pen and paper, and got very red and uncomfortable. If either
of the critics up-stairs, his wife, or his predecessor in the Rectory,
could but know that he was having an anonymous letter suggested to
him--that anybody ventured to think him capable of being an accomplice
in such proceedings! The presence of these two in the house, though
they were most probably at the moment engaged in the calmest abstract
conversation, and totally unaware of what was going on in the library,
had a great effect upon the Rector. He felt insulted that any man
could venture to confide such an intention to him almost within the
hearing of his wife. "If I am to take up your case, everything must be
open and straightforward," said Mr Morgan; while Elsworthy, who saw
that he had said something amiss, without precisely understanding
what, took up his hat as a resource, and once more began to polish it
round and round in his hands.
"I didn't mean no harm, sir, I'm sure," he said; "I don't seem to see
no other way o' finding out; for I aint like a rich man as can go and
come as he pleases; but I won't say no more, since it's displeasing to
you. If you'd give me the list of names, sir, as you have decided on
to be the committee, I wouldn't trouble you no longer, seeing as
you've got visitors. Perhaps, if the late Rector aint going away
directly, he would take it kind to be put on the committee; and he's a
gentleman as I've a great respect for, though he wasn't not to say the
man for Carlingford," said Elsworthy, with a sidelong look. He began
to feel the importance of his own position as the originator of a
committee, and at the head of the most exciting movement which had
been for a long time in Carlingford, and could not help being
sensible, notwithstanding his affliction, that he had a distinction to
offer which even the late Rector might be pleased to accept.
"I don't think Mr Proctor will stay," said Mr Morgan; "and if he does
stay, I believe he is a friend of Mr Wentworth's." It was only after
he had said this that the Rector perceived the meaning of the words he
had uttered; then, in his confusion and vexation, he got up hastily
from the table, and upset the inkstand in all the embarrassment of
the moment. "Of course that is all the greater reason for having his
assistance," said Mr Morgan, in his perplexity; "we are all friends of
Mr Wentworth. Will you have the goodness to ring the bell? There are
few things more painful than to take steps against a brother
clergyman, if one did not hope it would be for his benefit in the
end. Oh, never mind the table. Be so good as to ring the bell
again--louder, please."
"There aint nothing equal to blotting-paper, sir," said Elsworthy,
eagerly. "With a bit o' blotting-paper I'd undertake to rub out
ink-stains out o' the finest carpet--if you'll permit me. It aint but a
small speck, and it'll be gone afore you could look round. It's twenty
times better nor lemon-juice, or them poisonous salts as you're always
nervous of leaving about. Look you here, sir, if it aint a-sopping up
beautiful. There aint no harm done as your respected lady could be put
out about; and I'll take the list with me, if you please, to show to my
wife, as is a-breaking her heart at home, and can't believe as we'll
ever get justice. She says as how the quality always takes a gentleman's
part against us poor folks, but that aint been my experience. Don't you
touch the carpet, Thomas--there aint a speck to be seen when the
blotting-paper's cleared away. I'll go home, not to detain you no more,
sir, and cheer up the poor heart as is a-breaking," said Elsworthy,
getting up from his knees where he had been operating upon the carpet.
He had got in his hand the list of names which Mr Morgan had put down as
referees in this painful business, and it dawned faintly upon the Rector
for the moment that he himself was taking rather an undignified position
as Elsworthy's partisan.
"I have no objection to your showing it to your wife," said Mr Morgan;
"but I shall be much displeased if I hear any talk about it, Elsworthy;
and I hope it is not revenge you are thinking of, which is a very
unchristian sentiment," said the Rector, severely, "and not likely to
afford comfort either to her or to you."
"No, sir, nothing but justice," said Elsworthy, hoarsely, as he backed
out of the room. Notwithstanding this statement, it was with very
unsatisfactory sensations that Mr Morgan went up-stairs. He felt somehow
as if the justice which Elsworthy demanded, and which he himself had
solemnly declared to be pursuing the Curate of St Roque's, was
wonderfully like revenge. "All punishment must be more or less
vindictive," he said to himself as he went up-stairs; but that fact did
not make him more comfortable as he went into his wife's drawing-room,
where he felt more like a conspirator and assassin than an English
Rector in broad daylight, without a mystery near him, had any right to
feel. This sensation confused Mr Morgan much, and made him more
peremptory in his manner than ever. As for Mr Proctor, who was only a
spectator, and felt himself on a certain critical eminence, the
suggestion that occurred to his mind was, that he had come in at the end
of a quarrel, and that the conjugal firmament was still in a state of
disturbance: which idea acted upon some private projects in the hidden
mind of the Fellow of All-Souls, and produced a state of feeling little
more satisfactory than that of the Rector of Carlingford.
"I hope Mr Proctor is going to stay with us for a day or two," said Mrs
Morgan. "I was just saying it must look like coming home to come to the
house he used to live in, and which was even furnished to his own
taste," said the Rector's wife, shooting a little arrow at the late
Rector, of which that good man was serenely unconscious. All this time,
while they had been talking, Mrs Morgan had scarcely been able to keep
from asking who could possibly have suggested such a carpet. Mr
Proctor's chair was placed on the top of one of the big bouquets, which
expanded its large foliage round him with more than Eastern
prodigality--but he was so little conscious of any culpability of his
own in the matter, that he had referred his indignant hostess to one of
the leaves as an illustration of the kind of diaper introduced into the
new window which had lately been put up in the chapel of All-Souls. "A
naturalistic treatment, you know," said Mr Proctor, with the utmost
serenity; "and some people objected to it," added the unsuspicious man.
"I should have objected very strongly," said Mrs Morgan, with a little
flush. "If you call that naturalistic treatment, I consider it
perfectly out of place in decoration--of every kind--" Mr Proctor
happened to be looking at her at the moment, and it suddenly occurred
to him that Miss Wodehouse never got red in that uncomfortable way,
which was the only conclusion he drew from the circumstance, having
long ago forgotten that any connection had ever existed between
himself and the carpet on the drawing-room in Carlingford Rectory. He
addressed his next observation to Mr Morgan, who had just come in.
"I saw Mr Wodehouse's death in the 'Times,'" said Mr Proctor, "and I
thought the poor young ladies might feel--at least they might think it
a respect--or, at all events, it would be a satisfaction to one's
self," said the late Rector, who had got into a mire of explanation.
"Though he was far from being a young man, yet having a young daughter
like Miss Lucy--"
"Poor Lucy!" said Mr Morgan. "I hope that wretched fellow, young
Wentworth"--and here the Rector came to a dead stop, and felt that he
had brought the subject most to be avoided head and shoulders into the
conversation, as was natural to an embarrassed man. The consequence
was that he got angry, as might have been expected. "My dear, you must
not look at me as you do. I have just been hearing all the evidence.
No unbiassed mind could possibly come to any other decision," said Mr
Morgan, with exasperation. Now that he had committed himself, he
thought it was much the best thing to go in for it wholly, without
half measures, which was certainly the most straightforward way.
"What has happened to Wentworth?" said Mr Proctor. "He is a young man
for whom I have a great regard. Though he is so much younger than I
am, he taught me some lessons while I was in Carlingford which I shall
never forget. If he is in any trouble that I can help him in, I shall
be very glad to do it, both for his sake and for--" Mr Proctor slurred
over the end of his sentence a little, and the others were occupied
with their own difficulties, and did not take very much notice--for it
was difficult to state fully the nature and extent of Mr Wentworth's
enormities after such a declaration of friendship. "I met him on my
way here," said the Fellow of All-Souls, "not looking quite as he used
to do. I supposed it might be Mr Wodehouse's death, perhaps." All Mr
Proctor's thoughts ran in that channel of Mr Wodehouse's death, which,
after all, though sad enough, was not so great an event to the
community in general as the late Rector seemed to suppose.
It was Mrs Morgan at length who took heart to explain to Mr Proctor
the real state of affairs. "He has been a very good clergyman for five
years," said Mrs Morgan; "he might behave foolishly, you know, about
Wharfside, but then that was not his fault so much as the fault of the
Rector's predecessors. I am sure I beg your pardon, Mr Proctor--I did
not mean that you were to blame," said the Rector's wife; "but,
notwithstanding all the work he has done, and the consistent life he
has led, there is nobody in Carlingford who is not quite ready to
believe that he has run away with Rosa Elsworthy--a common little girl
without any education, or a single idea in her head. I suppose she is
what you would call pretty," said the indignant woman. "Everybody is
just as ready to believe that he is guilty as if he were a stranger or
a bad character." Mrs Morgan stopped in an abrupt manner, because her
quick eyes perceived a glance exchanged between the two gentlemen. Mr
Proctor had seen a good deal of the world in his day, as he was fond
of saying now and then to his intimate friends: and he had learned at
the university and other places that a girl who is "what you would
call pretty," counts for a great deal in the history of a young man,
whether she has any ideas in her head or not. He did not, any more
than the people of Carlingford, pronounce at once on _a priori_
evidence that Mr Wentworth must be innocent. The Curate's "consistent
life" did not go for much in the opinion of the middle-aged Fellow of
All-Souls, any more than of the less dignified populace. He said,
"Dear me, dear me!" in a most perplexed and distressed tone, while Mrs
Morgan kept looking at him; and looked very much as if he were tempted
to break forth into lamentations over human nature, as Mr Morgan
himself had done.
"I wonder what the Miss Wodehouses think of it," he said at last. "One
would do a great deal to keep them from hearing such a thing; but I
wonder how they are feeling about it," said Mr Proctor--and clearly
declined to discuss the matter with Mrs Morgan, who was counsel for
the defence. When the Rector's wife went to her own room to dress for
dinner, it is very true that she had a good cry over her cup of tea.
She was not only disappointed, but exasperated, in that impatient
feminine nature of hers. Perhaps if she had been less sensitive, she
would have had less of that redness in her face which was so great a
trouble to Mrs Morgan. These two slow middle-aged men, without any
intuitions, who were coming lumbering after her through all kind of
muddles of evidence and argument, exasperated the more rapid woman. To
be sure, they understood Greek plays a great deal better than she did;
but she was penetrated with the liveliest impatience of their dulness
all the same. Mrs Morgan, however, like most people who are in advance
of their age, felt her utter impotence against that blank wall of dull
resistance. She could not make them see into the heart of things as
she did. She had to wait until they had attacked the question in the
orthodox way of siege, and made gradual entrance by dint of hard
labour. All she could do to console herself was, to shed certain hot
tears of indignation and annoyance over her tea, which, however, was
excellent tea, and did her good. Perhaps it was to show her sense of
superiority, and that she did not feel herself vanquished, that, after
that, she put on her new dress, which was very much too nice to be
wasted upon Mr Proctor. As for Mr Leeson, who came in as usual just in
time for dinner, having heard of Mr Proctor's arrival, she treated him
with a blandness which alarmed the Curate. "I quite expected you, for
we have the All-Souls pudding to-day," said the Rector's wife, and she
smiled a smile which would have struck awe into the soul of any curate
that ever was known in Carlingford.