Mr Wentworth had to go into Carlingford on some business when he left
Miss Wodehouse; and as he went home again, having his head full of so
many matters, he forgot for the moment what most immediately concerned
himself, and was close upon Elsworthy's shop, looking into the window,
before he thought of it. Elsworthy himself was standing behind the
counter, with a paper in his hand, from which he was expounding
something to various people in the shop. It was getting late, and the
gas was lighted, which threw the interior into very bright relief to Mr
Wentworth outside. The Curate was still only a young man, though he was
a clergyman, and his movements were not always guided by reason or sound
sense. He walked into the shop, almost before he was aware what he was
doing. The people were inconsiderable people enough--cronies of
Elsworthy--but they were people who had been accustomed to look up very
reverentially to the Curate of St Roque's and Mr Wentworth was far from
being superior to their disapproval. There was a very visible stir among
them as he entered, and Elsworthy came to an abrupt stop in his
elucidations, and thrust the paper he had been reading into a drawer.
Dead and sudden silence followed the entrance of the Curate. Peter
Hayles, the druggist, who was one of the auditors, stole to the door
with intentions of escape, and the women, of whom there were two or
three, looked alarmed, not knowing what might come of it. As for Mr
Wentworth, there was only one thing possible for him to say. "Have you
heard anything of Rosa, Elsworthy?" he asked, with great gravity, fixing
his eyes upon the man's face. The question seemed to ring into all the
corners. Whether it was innocence or utter abandonment nobody could
tell, and the spectators held their breath for the answer. Elsworthy,
for his part, was as much taken by surprise as his neighbours. He grew
very pale and livid in his sudden excitement, and lost his voice, and
stood staring at the Curate like a man struck dumb. Perhaps Mr Wentworth
got bolder when he saw the effect he had produced. He repeated the
question, looking towards poor Mrs Elsworthy, who had jumped from her
husband's side when he came in. The whole party looked like startled
conspirators to Mr Wentworth's eyes, though he had not the least idea
what they had been doing. "Have you heard anything of Rosa?" he asked
again; and everybody looked at Elsworthy, as if he were the guilty man,
and had suborned the rest; which, indeed, in one sense, was not far from
being the case.
When Elsworthy came to himself, he gave Mr Wentworth a sidelong
dangerous look. "No, sir--nothing," said Rosa's uncle. "Them as has
hidden her has hidden her well. I didn't expect to hear not yet," said
Elsworthy. Though Mr Wentworth did not know what he meant, his little
audience in the shop did, and showed, by the slightest murmur in the
world, their conviction that the arrow had gone home, which naturally
acted like a spur upon the Curate, who was not the wisest man in the
world.
"I am very sorry to see you in so much distress," said the young man,
looking at Mrs Elsworthy's red eyes, "but I trust things will turn out
much better than you imagine. If I can do anything to help you, let
me know," said Mr Wentworth. Perhaps it was foolish to say so much,
knowing what he did, but unfortunately prudence was not the ruling
principle at that moment in the Curate's soul.
"I was a-thinking of letting you know, sir," said the clerk of St
Roque's, with deadly meaning; "leastways not me, but them as has taken
me by the hand. There's every prospect as it'll all be known afore
long," said Elsworthy, pushing his wife aside and following Mr
Wentworth, with a ghastly caricature of his old obsequiousness, to the
door. "There's inquiries a-being made as was never known to fail. For
one thing, I've written to them as knows a deal about the movements of
a party as is suspected--not to say as I've got good friends," said
Rosa's guardian, standing upon the step of his own door, and watching
the Curate out into the darkness. Mr Wentworth could not altogether
restrain a slight thrill of unpleasant emotion, for Elsworthy,
standing at his door with the light gleaming over him from behind, and
his face invisible, had an unpleasant resemblance to a wild beast
waiting for his prey.
"I am glad to think you are likely to be so successful. Send me word
as soon as you know," said the Curate, and he pursued his way home
afterwards, with feelings far from pleasant. He saw something was
about to come of this more than he had thought likely, and the crisis
was approaching. As he walked rapidly home, he concluded within
himself to have a conversation with the Rector next day after Mr
Wodehouse's funeral, and to ask for an investigation into the whole
matter. When he had come to this conclusion, he dismissed the subject
from his mind as far as was possible, and took to thinking of the
other matters which disturbed his repose, in which, indeed, it was
very easy to get perplexed and bewildered to his heart's content.
Anyhow, one way and another, the day of poor Mr Wodehouse's funeral
must necessarily be an exciting and momentous day.
Mr Wentworth had, however, no idea that its interest was to begin so
early. When he was seated at breakfast reading his letters, a note was
brought to him, which, coming in the midst of a lively chronicle of
home news from his sister Letty, almost stopped for the moment the
beating of the Curate's heart. It took him so utterly by surprise,
that more violent sentiments were lost for the moment in mere wonder.
He read it over twice before he could make it out. It was from the
Rector, and notwithstanding his wife's remonstrances, and his own
qualms of doubt and uncertainty, this was what Mr Morgan said:--
"DEAR SIR,--It is my painful duty to let you know that certain rumours
have reached my ears very prejudicial to your character as a
clergyman, and which I understand to be very generally current in
Carlingford. Such a scandal, if not properly dealt with, is certain to
have an unfavourable effect upon the popular mind, and injure the
clergy in the general estimation--while it is, as I need not point
out to you, quite destructive of your own usefulness. Under the
circumstances, I have thought it my duty, as Rector of the parish,
to take steps for investigating these reports. Of course I do not
pretend to any authority over you, nor can I enforce in any way your
participation in the inquiry or consent to it; but I beg to urge upon
you strongly, as a friend, the advantage of assenting freely, that
your innocence (if possible) may be made apparent, and your character
cleared. I enclose the names of the gentlemen whose assistance I
intend to request for this painful duty, in case you should object to
any of them; and would again urge you, _for your own sake_, the
expediency of concurrence. I regret to say that, though I would not
willingly prejudge any man, much less a brother clergyman, I do not
feel that it would be seemly on my part, under the circumstances, to
avail myself of your assistance today in the burial-service for the
late Mr Wodehouse.--Believe me, very sincerely yours,
"W. MORGAN."
When Mr Wentworth looked up from this letter, he caught sight of his
face in the mirror opposite, and gazed into his own eyes like a man
stupefied. He had not been without vexations in eight-and-twenty years
of a not uneventful life, but he had never known anything like the
misery of that moment. It was nearly four hours later when he walked
slowly up Grange Lane to the house, which before night might own so
different a master, but he had found as yet no time to spare for the
Wodehouses--even for Lucy--in the thoughts which were all occupied by
the unlooked-for blow. Nobody could tell, not even himself, the mental
discipline he had gone through before he emerged, rather stern, but
perfectly calm, in the sunshine in front of the closed-up house. If it
was not his to meet the solemn passenger at the gates with words of
hope, at least he could do a man's part to the helpless who had still
to live; but the blow was cruel, and all the force of his nature was
necessary to sustain it. All Carlingford knew, by the evidence of its
senses, that Mr Wentworth had been a daily visitor of the dead, and
one of his most intimate friends, and nobody had doubted for a moment
that to him would be assigned as great a portion of the service as his
feelings permitted him to undertake. When the bystanders saw him join
the procession, a thrill of surprise ran through the crowd; but
nobody--not even the man who walked beside him--ventured to trifle
with the Curate's face so far as to ask why. The Grand Inquisitor
himself, if such a mythical personage exists any longer, could not
have invented a more delicate torture than that which the respectable
and kind-hearted Rector of Carlingford inflicted calmly, without
knowing it, upon the Curate of St Roque's. How was Mr Morgan to know
that the sting would go to his heart? A Perpetual Curate without a
district has nothing to do with a heart so sensitive. The Rector put
on his own robes with a peaceful mind, feeling that he had done his
duty, and, with Mr Leeson behind him, came to the church door with
great solemnity to meet the procession. He read the words which are
so sweet and so terrible with his usual reading-desk voice as he read
the invitations every Sunday. He was a good man, but he was middle-aged,
and not accessible to impression from the mere aspect of death; and he
did not know Mr Wodehouse, nor care much for anything in the matter,
except his own virtue in excluding the Perpetual Curate from any share
in the service. Such was the Rector's feeling in respect to this
funeral, which made so much commotion in Carlingford. He felt that he
was vindicating the purity of his profession as he threaded his way
through the pathetic hillocks, where the nameless people were lying, to
poor Mr Wodehouse's grave.
This, however, was not the only thing which aroused the wonder and
interest of the townspeople when the two shrinking, hooded female
figures, all black and unrecognisable, rose up trembling to follow their
dead from the church to the grave. Everybody saw with wonder that their
place was contested, and that somebody else, a man whom no one knew,
thrust himself before them, and walked alone in the chief mourner's
place. As for Lucy, who, through her veil and her tears, saw nothing
distinctly, this figure, which she did not know, struck her only with a
vague astonishment. If she thought of it at all, she thought it a
mistake, simple enough, though a little startling, and went on, doing
all she could to support her sister, saying broken prayers in her heart,
and far too much absorbed in the duty she was performing to think who
was looking on, or to be conscious of any of the attending
circumstances, except Mr Morgan's voice, which was not the voice she had
expected to hear. Miss Wodehouse was a great deal more agitated than
Lucy. She knew very well who it was that placed himself before her,
asserting his own right without offering any help to his sisters; and
vague apprehensions, which she herself could not understand, came over
her just at the moment when she required her strength most. As there
were no other relations present, the place of honour next to the two
ladies had been tacitly conceded to Mr Proctor and Mr Wentworth; and it
was thus that the Curate rendered the last service to his old friend. It
was a strange procession, and concentrated in itself all that was most
exciting in Carlingford at the moment. Everybody observed and commented
upon the strange man, who, all remarkable and unknown, with his great
beard and sullen countenance, walked by himself as chief mourner. Who
was he? and whispers arose and ran through the outskirts of the crowd of
the most incredible description. Some said he was an illegitimate son
whom Mr Wodehouse had left all his property to, but whom the ladies knew
nothing of; some that it was a strange cousin, whom Lucy was to be
compelled to marry or lose her share; and after a while people compared
notes, and went back upon their recollections, and began to ask each
other if it was true that Tom Wodehouse died twenty years ago in the
West Indies? Then behind the two ladies--poor ladies, whose fate was
hanging in the balance, though they did not know it--came Mr Wentworth
in his cap and gown, pale and stern as nobody ever had seen him before
in Carlingford, excluded from all share in the service, which Mr Leeson,
in a flutter of surplice and solemnity, was giving his valuable
assistance in. The churchyard at Carlingford had not lost its semi-rural
air though the town had increased so much, for the district was very
healthy, as everybody knows, and people did not die before their time,
as in places less favoured. The townspeople, who knew Mr Wodehouse so
well, lingered all about among the graves, looking with neighbourly,
calm regret, but the liveliest curiosity. Most of the shopkeepers at
that end of George Street had closed their shops on the mournful
occasion, and felt themselves repaid. As for Elsworthy, he stood with a
group of supporters round him, as near as possible to the funeral
procession; and farther off in the distance, under the trees, was a much
more elegant spectator--an unlikely man enough to assist at such a
spectacle, being no less a person than Jack Wentworth, in the
perfection of an English gentleman's morning apparel, perfectly at his
ease and indifferent, yet listening with close attention to all the
scraps of talk that came in his way. The centre of all this wondering,
curious crowd, where so many passions and emotions and schemes and
purposes were in full tide, and life was beating so strong and vehement,
was the harmless dead, under the heavy pall which did not veil him so
entirely from the living as did the hopes and fears and curious
speculations which had already sprung up over him, filling up his place.
Among the whole assembly there was not one heart really occupied by
thoughts of him, except that of poor Lucy, who knew nothing of all the
absorbing anxieties and terrors that occupied the others. She had still
a moment's leisure for her natural grief. It was all she could do to
keep upright and support her sister, who had burdens to bear which Lucy
knew nothing of; but still, concealed under her hood and veil, seeing
nothing but the grave before her, hearing nothing but the sacred words
and the terrible sound of "dust to dust," the young creature stood
steadfast, and gave the dead man who had loved her his due--last
offering of nature and love, sweeter to anticipate than any honours.
Nobody but his child offered to poor Mr Wodehouse that last right of
humanity, or made his grave sacred with natural tears.
When they went back sadly out of all that blinding sunshine into the
darkened house, it was not all over, as poor Lucy had supposed. She
had begun to come to herself and understand once more the looks of the
people about her, when the old maid, who had been the attendant of the
sisters during all Lucy's life, undid her wrappings, and in her
agitation of the moment kissed her white cheek, and held her in her
arms. "Oh, Miss Lucy, darling, don't take on no more than you can
help. I'm sore, sore afeared that there's a deal of trouble afore you
yet," said the weeping woman. Though Lucy had not the smallest
possible clue to her meaning, and was almost too much worn out to be
curious, she could not help a vague thrill of alarm. "What is it,
Alland?" she said, rising up from the sofa on which she had thrown
herself. But Alland could do nothing but cry over her nursling and
console her. "Oh, my poor dear! oh, my darling! as he never would have
let the wind of heaven to blow rough upon her!" cried the old servant.
And it was just then that Miss Wodehouse, who was trembling all over
hysterically, came into the room.
"We have to go down-stairs," said the elder sister. "Oh Lucy, my
darling, it was not my fault at first. I should have told you last
night to prepare you, and I had not the heart. Mr Wentworth has told
me so often--"
"Mr Wentworth?" said Lucy. She rose up, not quite knowing where she
was; aware of nothing, except that some sudden calamity, under which
she was expected to faint altogether, was coming to her by means of Mr
Wentworth. Her mind jumped at the only dim possibility that seemed to
glimmer through the darkness. He must be married, she supposed, or
about to be married; and it was this they insulted her by thinking
that she could not bear. There was not a particle of colour in her
face before, but the blood rushed into it with a bitterness of shame
and rage which she had never known till now. "I will go down with you
if it is necessary," said Lucy; "but surely this is a strange time to
talk of Mr Wentworth's affairs." There was no time to explain anything
farther, for just then old Mrs Western, who was a distant cousin,
knocked at the door. "God help you, my poor dear children!" said the
old lady; "they are all waiting for you down-stairs," and it was with
this delusion in her mind, embittering every thought, that Lucy went
into the drawing-room where they were all assembled. The madness of
the idea did not strike her somehow, even when she saw the grave
assembly, which it was strange to think could have been brought
together to listen to any explanation from the Perpetual Curate. He
was standing there prominent enough among them, with a certain air of
suppressed passion in his face, which Lucy divined almost without
seeing it. For her own part, she went in with perfect firmness,
supporting her sister, whose trembling was painful to see. There was
no other lady in the room except old Mrs Western, who would not sit
down, but hovered behind the chairs which had been placed for the
sisters near the table at which Mr Waters was standing. By the side of
Mr Waters was the man who had been at the funeral, and whom nobody
knew, and a few gentlemen who were friends of the family were in the
room--the Rector, by virtue of his office, and Mr Proctor and Dr
Marjoribanks; and any one whose attention was sufficiently disengaged
to note the details of the scene might have perceived John, who had
been fifteen years with Mr Wodehouse, and the old cook in her black
gown, who was of older standing in the family than Alland herself,
peeping in, whenever it was opened, through the door.
"Now that the Miss Wodehouses are here, we may proceed to business,"
said Mr Waters. "Some of the party are already aware that I have an
important communication to make. I am very sorry if it comes abruptly
upon anybody specially interested. My late partner, much respected
though he has always been, was a man of peculiar views in many
respects. Dr Marjoribanks will bear me out in what I say. I had been
his partner for ten years before I found this out, highly important as
it will be seen to be; and I believe Mr Wentworth, though an intimate
friend of the family, obtained the information by a kind of
accident--"
The stranger muttered something in his beard which nobody could hear,
and the Perpetual Curate interposed audibly. "Would it not be best to
make the explanations afterwards?" said Mr Wentworth--and he changed
his own position and went over beside old Mrs Western, who was leaning
upon Lucy's chair. He put his own hand on the back of the chair with
an involuntary impulse. As for Lucy, her first thrill of nervous
strength had failed her: she began to get confused and bewildered; but
whatever it was, no insult, no wound to her pride or affections, was
coming to her from that hand which she knew was on her chair. She
leaned back a little, with a long sigh. Her imagination could not
conceive anything important enough for such a solemn intimation, and
her attention began to flag in spite of herself. No doubt it was
something about that money which people thought so interesting.
Meanwhile Mr Waters went on steadily with what he had to say, not
sparing them a word of the preamble; and it was not till ten minutes
later that Lucy started up with a sudden cry of incredulity and
wonder, and repeated his last words. "His son!--whose son?" cried
Lucy. She looked all round her, not knowing whom to appeal to in her
sudden consternation. "We never had a brother," said the child of Mr
Wodehouse's old age; "it must be some mistake." There was a dead pause
after these words. When she looked round again, a sickening conviction
came to Lucy's heart that it was no mistake. She rose up without
knowing it, and looked round upon all the people, who were watching
her with various looks of pity and curiosity and spectator-interest.
Mr Waters had stopped speaking, and the terrible stranger made a step
forward with an air that identified him. It was at him that Mr Proctor
was staring, who cleared his voice a great many times, and came
forward to the middle of the room and looked as if he meant to speak;
and upon him every eye was fixed except Mr Wentworth's, who was
watching Lucy, and Miss Wodehouse's, which were hidden in her hands.
"We never had a brother," she repeated, faltering; and then, in the
extremity of her wonder and excitement, Lucy turned round, without
knowing it, to the man whom her heart instinctively appealed to. "Is
it true?" she said. She held out her hands to him with a kind of
entreaty not to say so. Mr Wentworth made no reply to her question. He
said only, "Let me take you away--it is too much for you," bending
down over her, without thinking what he did, and drawing her hand
through his arm. "She is not able for any more," said the Curate,
hurriedly; "afterwards we can explain to her." If he could have
remembered anything about himself at the moment, it is probable that
he would have denied himself the comfort of supporting Lucy--he, a man
under ban; but he was thinking only of her, as he stood facing them
all with her arm drawn through his; upon which conjunction the Rector
and the late Rector looked with a grim aspect, disposed to interfere,
but not knowing how.
"All this may be very interesting to you," said the stranger out of
his beard; "if Lucy don't know her brother, it is no fault of mine. Mr
Waters has only said half he has got to say; and as for the rest, to
sum it up in half-a-dozen words, I'm very glad to see you in my house,
gentlemen, and I hope you will make yourselves at home. Where nobody
understands, a man has to speak plain. I've been turned out all my
life and, by Jove! I don't mean to stand it any longer. The girls can
have what their father's left them," said the vagabond, in his moment
of triumph. "They aint my business no more than I was theirs. The
property is freehold, and Waters is aware that I'm the heir."
Saying this, Wodehouse drew a chair to the table, and sat down with
emphasis. He was the only man seated in the room, and he kept his
place in his sullen way amid the excited group which gathered round
him. As for Miss Wodehouse, some sense of what had happened penetrated
even her mind. She too rose up and wiped her tears from her face, and
looked round, pale and scared, to the Curate. "I was thinking--of
speaking to Lucy. I meant to ask her--to take you back, Tom," said the
elder sister. "Oh, Mr Wentworth, tell me, for heaven's sake, what does
it mean?"
"If I had only been permitted to explain," said Mr Waters; "my worthy
partner died intestate--his son is his natural heir. Perhaps we need not
detain the ladies longer, now that they understand it. All the rest can
be better arranged with their representative. I am very sorry to add to
their sufferings today," said the polite lawyer, opening the door;
"everything else can be made the subject of an arrangement." He held the
door open with a kind of civil coercion compelling their departure. The
familiar room they were in no longer belonged to the Miss Wodehouses.
Lucy drew her arm out of Mr Wentworth's, and took her sister's hand.
"You will be our representative," she said to him, out of the fulness
of her heart. When the door closed, the Perpetual Curate took up his
position, facing them all with looks more lofty than belonged even to
his Wentworth blood. They had kept him from exercising his office at
his friend's grave, but nobody could take from him the still nobler
duty of defending the oppressed.