Mr Wentworth did not accept Mrs Morgan's sudden invitation, partly
because his "people" did not leave Carlingford that evening, and
partly because, though quite amiably disposed towards the Rector, whom
he had worsted in fair fight, he was not sufficiently interested in
anything he was likely to hear or see in Mr Morgan's house to move him
to spend his evening there. He returned a very civil answer to the
invitation of the Rector's wife, thanking her warmly for her
friendliness, and explaining that he could not leave his father on the
last night of his stay in Carlingford; after which he went to dinner
at his aunts', where the household was still much agitated. Not to
speak of all the events which had happened and were happening, Jack,
who had begun to tire of his new character of the repentant prodigal,
had shown himself in a new light that evening, and was preparing to
leave, to the relief of all parties. The prodigal, who no longer
pretended to be penitent, had taken the conversation into his own
hands at dinner. "I have had things my own way since I came here,"
said Jack; "somehow it appears I have a great luck for having things
my own way. It is you scrupulous people who think of others and of
such antiquated stuff as duty, and so forth, that get yourselves into
difficulties. My dear aunt, I am going away; if I were to remain an
inmate of this house--I mean to say, could I look forward to the
privilege of continuing a member of this Christian family--another
day, I should know better how to conduct myself; but I am going back
to my bad courses, aunt Dora; I am returning to the world--"
"Oh! Jack, my dear, I hope not," said aunt Dora, who was much
bewildered, and did not know what to say.
"Too true," said the relapsed sinner; "and considering all the lessons
you have taught me, don't you think it is the best thing I could do?
There is my brother Frank, who has been carrying other people about on
his shoulders, and doing his duty; but I don't see that you good
people are at all moved in his behalf. You leave him to fight his way
by himself, and confer your benefits elsewhere, which is an odd sort
of lesson for a worldling like me. As for Gerald, you know he's a
virtuous fool, as I have heard you all declare. There is nothing in
the world that I can see to prevent him keeping his living and doing
as he pleases, as most parsons do. However, that's his own business.
It is Frank's case which is the edifying case to me. If my convictions
of sin had gone just a step farther," said the pitiless critic, "if I
had devoted myself to bringing others to repentance, as is the first
duty of a reformed sinner, my aunt Leonora would not have hesitated to
give Skelmersdale to me--"
"Jack, hold your tongue," said Miss Leonora; but though her cheeks
burned, her voice was not so firm as usual, and she actually failed in
putting down the man who had determined to have his say.
"Fact, my dear aunt," said Jack; "if I had been a greater rascal than
I am, and gone a little farther, you and your people would have
thought me quite fit for a cure of souls. I'd have come in for your
good things that way as well as other ways; but here is Frank, who
even I can see is a right sort of parson. I don't pretend to fixed
theological opinions," said this unlooked-for oracle, with a comic
glance aside at Gerald, the most unlikely person present to make any
response; "but, so far as I can see, he's a kind of fellow most men
would be glad to make a friend of when they were under a cloud--not
that he was ever very civil to me. I tell you, so far from rewarding
him for being of the true sort, you do nothing but snub him, that I
can see. He looks to me as good for work as any man I know; but
you'll give your livings to any kind of wretched make-believe before
you'll give them to Frank. I am aware," said the heir of the
Wentworths, with a momentary flush, "that I have never been considered
much of a credit to the family; but if I were to announce my intention
of marrying and settling, there is not one of the name that would not
lend a hand to smooth matters. That is the reward of wickedness," said
Jack, with a laugh; "as for Frank, he's a perpetual curate, and may
marry perhaps fifty years hence; that's the way you good people treat
a man who never did anything to be ashamed of in his life; and you
expect me to give up my evil courses after such a lesson? I trust I am
not such a fool," said the relapsed prodigal. He sat looking at them
all in his easy way, enjoying the confusion, the indignation, and
wrath with which his address was received. "The man who gets his own
way is the man who takes it," he concluded, with his usual composure,
pouring out Miss Leonora's glass of claret as he spoke.
Nobody had ever before seen the strong-minded woman in so much
agitation. "Frank knows what my feelings are," she said, abruptly. "I
have a great respect for himself, but I have no confidence in his
principles. I--I have explained my ideas about Church patronage--"
But here the Squire broke in. "I always said, sir," said the old man,
with an unsteady voice, "that if I ever lived to see a thing or two
amended that was undoubtedly objectionable, your brother Jack's advice
would be invaluable to the family as a--as a man of the world. I have
nothing to say against clergymen, sir," continued the Squire, without
it being apparent whom he was addressing, "but I have always expressed
my conviction of--of the value of your brother Jack's advice as--as a
man of the world."
This speech had a wonderful effect upon the assembled family, but most
of all upon the son thus commended, who lost all his ease and
composure as his father spoke, and turned his head stiffly to one
side, as if afraid to meet the Squire's eyes, which indeed were not
seeking his, but were fixed upon the table, as was natural,
considering the state of emotion in which Mr Wentworth was. As for
Jack, when he had steadied himself a little, he got up from his seat
and tried to laugh, though the effort was far from being a successful
one.
"Even my father applauds me, you see, because I am a scamp and don't
deserve it," he said, with a voice which was partially choked.
"Good-bye, sir; I am going away."
The Squire rose too, with the hazy bewildered look of which his other
children were afraid.
"Good-bye, sir," said the old man, and then made a pause before he
held out his hand. "You'll not forget what I've said, Jack," he added,
with a little haste. "It's true enough, though I haven't that
confidence in you that--that I might have had. I am getting old, and I
have had two attacks, sir," said Mr Wentworth, with dignity; "and
anyhow, I can't live for ever. Your brothers can make their own way in
the world, but I haven't saved all that I could have wished. When I am
gone, Jack, be just to the girls and the little children," said the
Squire; and with that took his son's hand and grasped it hard, and
looked his heir full in the face.
Jack Wentworth was not prepared for any such appeal; he was still less
prepared to discover the unexpected and inevitable sequence with which
one good sentiment leads to another. He quite faltered and broke down
in this unlooked-for emergency. "Father," he said unawares, for the
first time for ten years, "if you wish it, I will join you in breaking
the entail."
"No such thing, sir," said the Squire, who, so far from being pleased,
was irritated and disturbed by the proposal. "I ask you to do your
duty, sir, and not to shirk it," the head of the house said, with
natural vehemence, as he stood with that circle of Wentworths round
him, giving forth his code of honour to his unworthy heir.
While his father was speaking, Jack recovered a little from his
momentary _attendrissement_. "Good-bye, sir; I hope you'll live a
hundred years," he said, wringing his father's hand, "if you don't
last out half-a-dozen of me, as you ought to do. But I'd rather not
anticipate such a change. In that case," the prodigal went on with a
certain huskiness in his voice, "I daresay I should not turn out so
great a rascal as--as I ought to do. To-day and yesterday it has even
occurred to me by moments that I was your son, sir," said Jack
Wentworth; and then he made an abrupt stop and dropped the Squire's
hand, and came to himself in a surprising way. When he turned towards
the rest of the family, he was in perfect possession of his usual
courtesy and good spirits. He nodded to them all round--with superb
good-humour. "Good-bye, all of you; I wish you better luck, Frank, and
not so much virtue. Perhaps you will have a better chance now the lost
sheep has gone back to the wilderness. Good-bye to you all. I don't
think I've any other last words to say." He lighted his cigar with his
ordinary composure in the hall, and whistled one of his favourite airs
as he went through the garden. "Oddly enough, however, our friend
Wodehouse can beat me in that," he said, with a smile, to Frank, who
had followed him out, "perhaps in other things too, who knows?
Good-bye, and good-luck, old fellow." And thus the heir of the
Wentworths disappeared into the darkness, which swallowed him up, and
was seen no more.
But naturally there was a good deal of commotion in the house. Miss
Leonora, who never had known what it was to have nerves in the entire
course of her existence, retired to her own room with a headache, to
the entire consternation of the family. She had been a strong-minded
woman all her life, and managed everybody's affairs without being
distracted and hampered in her career by those doubts of her own
wisdom, and questions as to her own motives, which will now and then
afflict the minds of weaker people when they have to decide for
others. But this time an utterly novel and unexpected accident had
befallen Miss Leonora; a man of no principles at all had delivered his
opinion upon her conduct--and so far from finding his criticism
contemptible, or discovering in it the ordinary outcry of the wicked
against the righteous, she had found it true, and by means of it had
for perhaps the first time in her life seen herself as others saw her.
Neither was the position in which she found herself one from which she
could get extricated even by any daring arbitrary exertion of will,
such as a woman in difficulties is sometimes capable of. To be sure,
she might still have cut the knot in a summary feminine way; might
have said "No" abruptly to Julia Trench and her curate, and, after
all, have bestowed Skelmersdale, like any other prize or reward of
virtue, upon her nephew Frank--a step which Miss Dora Wentworth would
have concluded upon at once without any hesitation. The elder sister,
however, was gifted with a truer perception of affairs. Miss Leonora
knew that there were some things which could be done, and yet could
not be done--a piece of knowledge difficult to a woman. She recognised
the fact that she had committed herself, and got into a corner from
which there was but one possible egress; and as she acknowledged this
to herself, she saw at the same time that Julia Trench (for whom she
had been used to entertain a good-humoured contempt as a clever sort
of girl enough) had managed matters very cleverly, and that, instead of
dispensing her piece of patronage like an optimist to the best, she had,
in fact, given it up to the most skilful and persevering angler, as any
other woman might have done. The blow was bitter, and Miss Leonora did
not seek to hide it from herself, not to say that the unpleasant
discovery was aggravated by having been thus pointed out by Jack, who in
his own person had taken her in, and cheated his sensible aunt. She felt
humbled, and wounded in the tenderest point, to think that her reprobate
nephew had seen through her, but that she had not been able to see
through him, and had been deceived by his professions of penitence. The
more she turned it over in her mind, the more Miss Leonora's head ached;
for was it not growing apparent that she, who prided herself so much on
her impartial judgment, had been moved, not by heroic and stoical
justice and the love of souls, but a good deal by prejudice and a good
deal by skilful artifice, and very little indeed by that highest motive
which she called the glory of God? And it was Jack who had set all this
before her clear as daylight. No wonder the excellent woman was
disconcerted. She went to bed gloomily with her headache, and would
tolerate no ministrations, neither of sal-volatile nor eau-de-Cologne,
nor even of green tea. "It always does Miss Dora a power of good," said
the faithful domestic who made this last suggestion; but Miss Leonora
answered only by turning the unlucky speaker out of the room, and
locking the door against any fresh intrusion. Miss Dora's innocent
headaches were articles of a very different kind from this, which
proceeded neither from the heart nor the digestion, but from the
conscience, as Miss Leonora thought--with, possibly, a little aid from
the temper, though she was less conscious of that. It was indeed a long
series of doubts and qualms, and much internal conflict, which resulted
through the rapidly-maturing influences of mortification and humbled
self-regard, in this ominous and awe-inspiring Headache which startled
the entire assembled family, and added fresh importance to the general
crisis of Wentworth affairs.
"I should not wonder if it was the Wentworth complaint," said Miss
Dora, with a sob of fright, to the renewed and increased indignation
of the Squire.
"I have already told you that the Wentworth complaint never attacks
females," Mr Wentworth said emphatically, glad to employ what sounded
like a contemptuous title for the inferior sex.
"Yes, oh yes; but then Leonora is not exactly what you would call--a
female," said poor Miss Dora, from whom an emergency so unexpected
had taken all her little wits.
While the house was in such an agitated condition, it is not to be
supposed that it could be very comfortable for the gentlemen when they
came up-stairs to the drawing-room, and found domestic sovereignty
overthrown by a headache which nobody could comprehend, and chaos
reigning in Miss Leonora's place. Naturally there was, for one of the
party at least, a refuge sweet and close at hand, to which his
thoughts had escaped already. Frank Wentworth did not hesitate to
follow his thoughts. Against the long years when family bonds make up
all that is happiest in life, there must always be reckoned those
moments of agitation and revolution, during which the bosom of a
family is the most unrestful and disturbing place in existence, from
which it is well to have a personal refuge and means of escape. The
Perpetual Curate gave himself a little shake, and drew a long breath,
as he emerged from one green door in Grange Lane and betook himself to
another. He shook himself clear of all the Wentworth perplexities, all
the family difficulties and doubts, and betook himself into the
paradise which was altogether his own, and where there were no
conflicting interests or differences of opinion. He was in such a
hurry to get there that he did not pay any attention to the general
aspect of Grange Lane, or to the gossips who were gathered round
Elsworthy's door: all that belonged to a previous stage of existence.
At present he was full of the grand discovery, boldly stated by his
brother Jack--"The man who gets his own way is the man who _takes_
it." It was not an elevated doctrine, or one that had hitherto
commended itself specially to the mind of the Perpetual Curate; but he
could not help thinking of his father's pathetic reliance upon Jack's
advice as a man of the world, as he laid up in his mind the prodigal's
maxim, and felt, with a little thrill of excitement, that he was about
to act on it; from which manner of stating the case Mr Wentworth's
friends will perceive that self-will had seized upon him in the worst
form; for he was not going boldly up to the new resolution with his
eyes open, but had resigned himself to the tide, which was gradually
rising in one united flux of love, pride, impatience, sophistry, and
inclination; which he watched with a certain passive content, knowing
that the stormy current would carry him away.
Mr Wentworth, however, reckoned without his host, as is now and then
the case with most men, Perpetual Curates included. He walked into the
other drawing-room, which was occupied only by two ladies, where the
lamp was burning softly on the little table in the corner, and the
windows, half open, admitted the fragrant air, the perfumed breath and
stillness and faint inarticulate noises of the night. Since the visit
of Wodehouse in the morning, which had driven Lucy into her first fit
of passion, an indescribable change had come over the house, which had
now returned to the possession of its former owners, and looked again
like home. It was very quiet in the familiar room which Mr Wentworth
knew so well, for it was only when excited by events "beyond their
control," as Miss Wodehouse said, that the sisters could forget what
had happened so lately--the loss which had made a revolution in their
world. Miss Wodehouse, who for the first time in her life was busy,
and had in hand a quantity of mysterious calculations and lists to
make out, sat at the table in the centre of the room, with her desk
open, and covered with long slips of paper. Perhaps it was to save her
Rector the trouble that the gentle woman gave herself so much labour;
perhaps she liked putting down on paper all the things that were
indispensable for the new establishment. At all events, she looked up
only to give Mr Wentworth a smile and sisterly nod of welcome as he
came in and made his way to the corner where Lucy sat, not
unexpectant. Out of the disturbed atmosphere he had just left, the
Perpetual Curate came softly into that familiar corner, feeling that
he had suddenly reached his haven, and that Eden itself could not
have possessed a sweeter peace. Lucy in her black dress, with traces
of the exhaustion of nature in her face, which was the loveliest face
in the world to Mr Wentworth, looked up and welcomed him with that
look of satisfaction and content which is the highest compliment one
human creature can pay to another. His presence rounded off all the
corners of existence to Lucy for that moment at least, and made the
world complete and full. He sat down beside her at her work-table with
no further interruption to the _tete-a-tete_ than the presence of the
kind elder sister at the table, who was absorbed in her lists, and
who, even had that pleasant business been wanting, was dear and
familiar enough to both to make her spectatorship just the sweet
restraint which endears such intercourse all the more. Thus the
Perpetual Curate seated himself, feeling in some degree master of the
position; and surely here, if nowhere else in the world, the young man
was justified in expecting to have his own way.
"They have settled about their marriage," said Lucy, whose voice was
sufficiently audible to be heard at the table, where Miss Wodehouse
seized her pen hastily and plunged it into the ink, doing her best to
appear unconscious, but failing sadly in the attempt. "Mr Proctor is
going away directly to make everything ready, and the marriage is to
be on the 15th of next month."
"And ours?" said Mr Wentworth, who had not as yet approached that
subject. Lucy knew that this event must be far off, and was not
agitated about it as yet; on the contrary, she met his look
sympathetically and with deprecation after the first natural blush,
and soothed him in her feminine way, patting softly with her pretty
hand the sleeve of his coat.
"Nobody knows," said Lucy. "We must wait, and have patience. We have
more time to spare than they have," she added, with a little laugh.
"We must wait."
"I don't see the _must_," said the Perpetual Curate. "I have been
thinking it all over since the morning. I see no reason why I should
always have to give in, and wait; self-sacrifice is well enough when
it can't be helped, but I don't see any reason for postponing my
happiness indefinitely. Look here, Lucy. It appears to me at present
that there are only two classes of people in the world--those who will
wait, and those who won't. I don't mean to enrol myself among the
martyrs. The man who gets his own way is the man who takes it. I don't
see any reason in the world for concluding that I _must_ wait."
Lucy Wodehouse was a very good young woman, a devoted Anglican, and
loyal to all her duties; but she had always been known to possess a
spark of spirit, and this rebellious quality came to a sudden blaze at
so unlooked-for a speech. "Mr Wentworth," said Lucy, looking the
Curate in the face with a look which was equivalent to making him a
low curtsy, "I understood there were two people to be consulted as to
the must or must not;" and having entered this protest, she withdrew
her chair a little farther off, and bestowed her attention absolutely
upon the piece of needlework in her hand.
If the ground had suddenly been cut away underneath Frank Wentworth's
feet, he could not have been more surprised; for, to tell the truth,
it had not occurred to him to doubt that he himself was the final
authority on this point, though, to be sure, it was part of the
conventional etiquette that the lady should "fix the day." He sat
gazing at her with so much surprise that for a minute or two he could
say nothing. "Lucy, I am not going to have you put yourself on the
other side," he said at last; "there is not to be any opposition
between you and me."
"That is as it may be," said Lucy, who was not mollified. "You seem to
have changed your sentiments altogether since the morning, and there
is no change in the circumstances, at least that I can see."
"Yes, there is a great change," said the young man. "If I could have
sacrificed myself in earnest and said nothing--"
"Which you were quite free to do," interrupted Lucy, who, having given
way to temper once to-day, found in herself an alarming proclivity
towards a repetition of the offence.
"Which I was quite free to do," said the Perpetual Curate, with a
smile, "but could not, and did not, all the same. Things are
altogether changed. Now, be as cross as you please, you belong to me,
_Lucia mia_. To be sure, I have no money--"
"I was not thinking of that," said the young lady, under her breath.
"Of course one has to think about it," said Mr Wentworth; "but the
question is, whether we shall be happier and better going on separate
in our usual way, or making up our minds to give up something for the
comfort of being together. Perhaps you will forgive me for taking
_that_ view of the question," said the Curate, with a little
enthusiasm. "I have got tired of ascetic principles. I don't see why
it must be best to deny myself and postpone myself to other things and
other people. I begin to be of my brother Jack's opinion. The children
of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of
light. A man who will wait has to wait. Providence does not invariably
reward him after he has been tried, as we used to suppose. I am
willing to be a poor man because I can't help it; but I am not willing
to wait and trust my happiness to the future when it is in my reach
now," said the unreasonable young man, to whom it was of course as
easy as it was to Lucy to change the position of his chair, and
prevent the distance between them being increased. Perhaps he might
have carried his point even at that moment, had not Miss Wodehouse,
who had heard enough to alarm her, come forward hastily in a fright on
the prudential side.
"I could not help hearing what you were saying," said the elder
sister. "Oh, Mr Wentworth, I hope you don't mean to say that you can't
trust Providence? I am sure that is not Lucy's way of thinking. I
would not mind, and I am sure she would not mind, beginning very
quietly; but then you have nothing, next to nothing, neither of you.
It might not matter, just at the first," said Miss Wodehouse, with
serious looks; "but then--afterwards, you know," and a vision of a
nursery flashed upon her mind as she spoke. "Clergymen always have
such large families," she said half out before she was aware, and
stopped, covered with confusion, not daring to look at Lucy to see
what effect such a suggestion might have had upon her. "I mean," cried
Miss Wodehouse, hurrying on to cover over her inadvertence if
possible, "I have seen such cases; and a poor clergyman who has to
think of the grocer's bill and the baker's bill instead of his parish
and his duty--there are some things you young people know a great deal
better than I do, but you don't know how dreadful it is to see that."
Here Lucy, on her part, was touched on a tender point, and interposed.
"For a man to be teased about bills," said the young housekeeper, with
flushed cheeks and an averted countenance, "it must be not his
poverty, but his--his wife's fault."
"Oh, Lucy, don't say so," cried Miss Wodehouse; "what is a poor woman
to do, especially when she has no money of her own, as you wouldn't
have? and then the struggling, and getting old before your time, and
all the burdens--"
"Please don't say any more," said Lucy; "there was no intention on--on
any side to drive things to a decision. As for me, I have not a high
opinion of myself. I would not be the means of diminishing anyone's
comforts," said the spiteful young woman. "How can I be sure that I
might not turn out a very poor compensation? We settled this morning
how all that was to be, and I for one have not changed my mind--as
yet," said Lucy. That was all the encouragement Mr Wentworth got when
he propounded his new views. Things looked easy enough when he was
alone, and suffered himself to drift on pleasantly on the changed and
heightened current of personal desires and wishes; but it became
apparent to him, after that evening's discussion, that even in Eden
itself, though the dew had not yet dried on the leaves, it would be
highly incautious for any man to conclude that he was sure of having
his own way. The Perpetual Curate returned a sadder and more doubtful
man to Mrs Hadwin's, to his own apartments; possibly, as the two
states of mind so often go together, a wiser individual too.