The Perpetual Curate Part 3

"But the mission is effective, I suppose, or you would not object to it?" said Miss Leonora, who, though a very religious woman, was not a peacemaker; and the Rector, whose temper was hasty, swallowed the bait.

He entered into his grievances more fully than his wife thought consistent with his dignity. She sat with her eyes fixed upon the floor, tracing the objectionable pattern on the carpet with her foot, but too much vexed for the moment to think of those bouquets which were so severe a cross to her on ordinary occasions. Perhaps she was thinking secretly to herself how much better one knows a man after being married to him three months than after being engaged to him ten years; but the discovery that he was merely a man after all, with very ordinary defects, did not lessen her loyalty. She sat with her eyes bent upon the carpet, feeling a little hot and uncomfortable as her husband disclosed his weakness, and watching her opportunities to rush in and say a softening word now and then. The chances were, perhaps, on the whole, that the wife grew _more_ loyal, if that were possible, as she perceived the necessity of standing by him and backing him out. The Rector went very fully into the subject, being drawn out by Miss Leonora's questions, and betrayed an extent of information strangely opposed to the utter ignorance which he had displayed at Mr Wodehouse's party. He knew the hours of Mr Wentworth's services, and the number of people who attended, and even about Tom Burrows's six children who had been baptised the day before. Somehow Mr Morgan took this last particular as a special offence; it was this which had roused him beyond his usual self-control.

Six little heathens brought into the Christian fold in his own parish without the permission of the Rector! It was indeed enough to try any clergyman's temper. Through the entire narrative Miss Dora broke in now and then with a little wail expressive of her general dismay and grief, and certainty that her dear Frank did not mean it. Mrs Morgan repeated apart to Miss Wentworth with a troubled brow the fact that all they had seen of Mr Wentworth in private they had liked very much; to which aunt Cecilia answered, "Quite so," with her beautiful smile; while Miss Leonora sat and listened, putting artful questions, and fixing the heated Rector with that iron-grey eye, out of which the sparkle of incipient light had not faded. Mr Morgan naturally said a great deal more than he meant to say, and after it was said he was sorry; but he did not show the latter sentiment except by silence and an uneasy rustling about the room just before the Miss Wentworths rose to go--a sign apparent to his wife, though to n.o.body else. He gave Miss Wentworth his arm to the door with an embarra.s.sed courtesy. "If you are going to stay any time at Carlingford, I trust we shall see more of you," said Mr Morgan: "I ought to beg your pardon for taking up so much time with my affairs;" and the Rector was much taken aback when Miss Wentworth answered, "Thank you, that is just what I was thinking." He went back to his troubled wife in great perplexity. What was it that was just what she was thinking?--that he would see more of them, or that he had spoken too much of his own affairs?

"You think I have been angry and made an idiot of myself," said Mr Morgan to his wife, who was standing looking from a safe distance through the curtains at the three ladies, who were holding a consultation with their servant out of the window of the solemn chariot provided by the Blue Boar, as to where they were to go next.

"Nonsense, dear; but I wish you had not said quite so much about Mr Wentworth," said the Rector's wife, seizing, with female art, on a cause for her annoyance which would not wound her Welshman's _amour propre_, "for I rather think he is dependent on his aunts. They have the living of Skelmersdale, I know; and I remember now that their nephew was to have had it. I hope this won't turn them against him, dear," said Mrs Morgan, who did not care the least in the world about Skelmersdale, looking anxiously in her husband's face.

This was the climax of the Rector's trouble. "Why did not you tell me that before?" he said, with conjugal injustice, and went off to his study with a disturbed mind, thinking that perhaps he had injured his own chances of getting rid of the Perpetual Curate. If Mrs Morgan had permitted herself to soliloquise after he was gone, the matter of her thoughts might have been interesting; but as neither ladies nor gentlemen in the nineteenth century are given to that useful medium of disclosing their sentiments, the veil of privacy must remain over the mind of the Rector's wife. She got her gardening gloves and scissors, and went out immediately after, and had an animated discussion with the gardener about the best means of clothing that bit of wall, over which every railway train was visible which left or entered Carlingford. That functionary was of opinion that when the lime-trees "growed a bit" all would be right: but Mrs Morgan was reluctant to await the slow processes of nature. She forgot her vexations about Mr Wentworth in consideration of the still more palpable inconvenience of the pa.s.sing train.

CHAPTER VI.

Miss Dora Wentworth relapsed into suppressed sobbing when the three ladies were once more on their way. Between each little access a few broken words fell from the poor lady's lips. "I am sure dear Frank did not mean it," she said; it was all the plea his champion could find for him.

"He did not mean what? to do his duty and save souls?" said Miss Leonora--"is that what he didn't mean? It looks very much as if he did, though--as well as he knew how."

"Quite so, Leonora," said Miss Wentworth.

"But he could not mean to vex the Rector," said Miss Dora--"my poor dear Frank: of course he meant it for the very best. I wonder you don't think so, Leonora--you who are so fond of missions. I told you what I heard him saying to the young lady--all about the sick people he was going to visit, and the children. He is a faithful shepherd, though you won't think so; and I am sure he means nothing but--"

"His duty, I think," said the iron-grey sister, resolutely indifferent to Miss Dora's little sniffs, and turning her gaze out of the window, unluckily just at the moment when the carriage was pa.s.sing Masters's shop, where some engravings were hanging of a suspiciously devotional character. The name over the door, and the aspect of the shop-window, were terribly suggestive, and the fine profile of the Perpetual Curate was just visible within to the keen eyes of his aunt. Miss Dora, for her part, dried hers, and, beginning to see some daylight, addressed herself anxiously to the task of obscuring it, and damaging once more her favourite's chance.

"Ah, Leonora, if he had but a sphere of his own," cried Miss Dora, "where he would have other things to think of than the rubric, and decorations, and sisterhoods! I don't wish any harm to poor dear old Mr Shirley, I am sure; but when Frank is in the Rectory--"

"I thought you understood that Frank would not do for the Rectory,"

said Miss Leonora. "Sisterhoods!--look here, there's a young lady in a grey cloak, and I think she's going into _that_ shop: if Frank carries on that sort of thing, I shall think him a greater fool than ever. Who is that girl?"

"I'm sure I don't know, dear," said Miss Dora, with unexpected wisdom.

And she comforted her conscience that she did not know, for she had forgotten Lucy's name. So there was no tangible evidence to confirm Miss Leonora's doubts, and the carriage from the Blue Boar rattled down p.r.i.c.kett's Lane to the much amazement of that locality. When they got to the grimy ca.n.a.l-banks, Miss Leonora stopped the vehicle and got out. She declined the attendance of her trembling sister, and marched along the black pavement, dispersing with the great waves of her drapery the wondering children about, who swarmed as children will swarm in such localities. Arrived at the schoolroom, Miss Leonora found sundry written notices hung up in a little wooden frame inside the open door. All sorts of charitable businesses were carried on about the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house; and a curt little notice about the Provident Society diversified the list of services which was hung up for the advantage of the ignorant. Clearly the Curate of St Roque's meant it. "As well as he knows how," his aunt allowed to herself, with a softening sentiment; but, pushing her inquiries further, was shown up to the schoolroom, and stood pondering by the side of the reading-desk, looking at the table which was contrived to be so like an altar. The Curate, who could not have dreamed of such a visit, and whose mind had been much occupied and indifferent to externals on the day before, had left various things lying about, which were carefully collected for him upon a bench. Among them was a little pocket copy of Thomas a Kempis, from which, when the jealous aunt opened it, certain little German prints, such as were to be had by the score at Masters's, dropped out, some of them un.o.bjectionable enough. But if the Good Shepherd could not be found fault with, the feelings of Miss Leonora may be imagined when the meek face of a monkish saint, inscribed with some villanous Latin inscription, a legend which began with the terrible words _Ora pro n.o.bis_, became suddenly visible to her troubled eyes. She put away the book as if it had stung her, and made a precipitate retreat. She shook her head as she descended the stair--she re-entered the carriage in gloomy silence. When it returned up p.r.i.c.kett's Lane, the three ladies again saw their nephew, this time entering the door of No.

10. He had his prayer-book under his arm, and Miss Leonora seized upon this professional symbol to wreak her wrath upon it. "I wonder if he can't pray by a sick woman without his prayer-book?" she cried. "I never was so provoked in my life. How is it he doesn't know better? His father is not pious, but he isn't a Puseyite, and old uncle Wentworth was very sound--he was brought up under the pure Gospel. How is that the boys are so foolish, Dora?" said Miss Leonora, sharply; "it must be your doing.

You have told them tales and things, and put true piety out of their head."

"My doing!" said Miss Dora, faintly; but she was too much startled by the suddenness of the attack to make any coherent remonstrance. Miss Leonora tossed back her angry head, and pursued that inspiration, finding it a relief in her perplexity.

"It must be _all_ your doing," she said. "How can I tell that you are not a Jesuit in disguise? one has read of such a thing. The boys were as good, nice, pious boys as one could wish to see; and there's Gerald on the point of perversion, and Frank--I tell you, Dora, it must be your fault."

"That was always my opinion," said Miss Cecilia; and the accused, after a feeble attempt at speech, could find nothing better to do than to drop her veil once more and cry under it. It was very hard, but she was not quite unaccustomed to it. However, the discoveries of the day were important enough to prevent the immediate departure which Miss Leonora had intended. She wrote a note with her own hands to her nephew, asking him to dinner. "We meant to have gone away to-day, but should like to see you first," she said in her note. "Come and dine--we mayn't have anything pleasant to say, but I don't suppose you expect that. It's a pity we don't see eye to eye." Such was the intimation received by Mr Wentworth when he got home, very tired, in the afternoon. He had been asking himself whether, under the circ.u.mstances, it would not be proper of him to return some books of Mr Wodehouse's which he had in his possession, of course by way of breaking off his too familiar, too frequent intercourse. He had been representing to himself that he would make this call after their dinner would be over, at the hour when Mr Wodehouse reposed in his easy-chair, and the two sisters were generally to be found alone in the drawing-room. Perhaps he might have an opportunity of intimating the partial farewell he meant to take of them. When he got Miss Leonora's note, the Curate's countenance clouded over. He said, "Another night lost," with indignant candour. It was hard enough to give up his worldly prospects, but he thought he had made up his mind to that. However, refusal was impossible. It was still daylight when he went up Grange Lane to the Blue Boar. He was early, and went languidly along the well-known road. n.o.body was about at that hour. In those closed, embowered houses, people were preparing for dinner, the great event of the day, and Mr Wentworth was aware of that. Perhaps he had expected to see somebody--Mr Wodehouse going home, most likely, in order that he might mention his own engagement, and account for his failure in the chance evening call which had become so much a part of his life. But no one appeared to bear his message. He went lingering past the green door, and up the silent deserted road. At the end of Grange Lane, just in the little unsettled transition interval which interposed between its aristocratic calm and the bustle of George Street, on the side next p.r.i.c.kett's Lane, was a quaint little shop, into which Mr Wentworth strayed to occupy the time. This was Elsworthy's, who, as is well known, was then clerk at St Roque's.

Elsworthy himself was in his shop that Easter Monday, and so was his wife and little Rosa, who was a little beauty. Rosa and her aunt had just returned from an excursion, and a prettier little apparition could not be seen than that dimpled rosy creature, with her radiant half-childish looks, her bright eyes, and soft curls of dark-brown hair. Even Mr Wentworth gave a second glance at her as he dropped languidly into a chair, and asked Elsworthy if there was any news. Mrs Elsworthy, who had been telling the adventures of the holiday to her goodman, gathered up her basket of eggs and her nosegay, and made the clergyman a little curtsy as she hurried away; for the clerk's wife was a highly respectable woman, and knew her own place. But Rosa, who was only a kind of kitten, and had privileges, stayed. Mr Wentworth was by far the most magnificent figure she had ever seen in her little life. She looked at him with awe out of her bright eyes, and thought he looked like the prince in the fairy tales.

"Any news, sir? There aint much to call news, sir--not in a place like this," said Mr Elsworthy. "Your respected aunts, sir, 'as been down at the schoolroom. I haven't heard anything else as I could suppose you didn't know."

"My aunts!" cried the Curate; "how do you know anything about my aunts?" Mr Elsworthy smiled a complacent and familiar smile.

"There's so many a-coming and a-going here that I know most persons as comes into Carlingford," said he; "and them three respected ladies is as good as a pictur. I saw them a-driving past and down p.r.i.c.kett's Lane. They was as anxious to know all about it as--as was to be expected in the circ.u.mstances," said Mr Elsworthy, failing of a metaphor; "and I wish you your 'ealth and 'appiness, sir, if all as I hear is true."

"It's a good wish," said the Curate; "thank you, Elsworthy; but what you heard might not be true."

"Well, sir, it looks more than likely," said the clerk; "as far as I've seen in my experience, ladies don't go inquiring into a young gentleman's ways, not without some reason. If they was young ladies, and noways related, we know what we'd think, sir; but being old ladies, and aunts, it's equally as clear. For my part, Mr Wentworth, my worst wish is, that when you come into your fortune, it mayn't lead you away from St Roque's--not after everything is settled so beautiful, and not a thing wanted but some stained gla.s.s, as I hear a deal of people say, to make it as perfect a little church--"

"Yes, it is very true; a painted window is very much wanted," said Mr Wentworth, thoughtfully.

"Perhaps there's one o' the ladies, sir, as has some friend she'd like to put up a memorial to," said Mr Elsworthy, in insinuating tones. "A window is a deal cheerfuller a memorial than a tombstone, and it couldn't be described the improvement it would be to the church. I'm sorry to hear Mr Wodehouse aint quite so well as his usual to-night; a useful man like he is, would be a terrible loss to Carlingford; not as it's anything alarming, as far as I can hear, but being a stout man, it aint a safe thing his being took so sudden. I've heard the old doctor say, sir, as a man of a full 'abit might be took off at once, when a spare man would fight through. It would be a sad thing for his family, sir," said Mr Elsworthy, tying up a bundle of newspapers with a very serious face.

"Good heavens, Elsworthy, how you talk!" said the alarmed Curate. "What do you mean?--is Mr Wodehouse ill?--seriously ill?"

"Not serious, as I knows of," said the clerk, with solemnity; "but being a man of a full 'abit of body--I daresay as the town would enter into it by subscription if it was proposed as a memorial to _him_, for he's much respected in Carlingford is Mr Wodehouse. I see him a-going past, sir, at five o'clock, which is an hour earlier than common, and he was looking flabby, that's how he was looking. I don't know a man as would be a greater loss to his family; and they aint been without their troubles either, poor souls."

"I should be sorry to think that it was necessary to sacrifice Mr Wodehouse for the sake of our painted window," said the Curate, "as that seems what you mean. Send over this note for me please, as I have not time to call. No, certainly, don't send Rosa; that child is too young and too--too pretty to be out by herself at night. Send a boy.

Haven't you got a boy?--there is a very nice little fellow that I could recommend to you," said Mr Wentworth, as he hastily scribbled his note with a pencil, "whose mother lives in p.r.i.c.kett's Lane."

"Thank _you_, sir, all the same; but I hope I don't need to go into that neighbourhood for good service," said Mr Elsworthy: "as for Rosa, I could trust her anywhere; and I have a boy, sir, as is the best boy that ever lived--a real English boy, that is. Sam, take this to Mr Wodehouse's directly, and wait for an answer. No answer?--very well, sir. You needn't wait for no answer, Sam. That's a boy, sir, I could trust with untold gold. His mother's a Dissenter, it is true, but the principles of that boy is beautiful. I hope you haven't mentioned, sir, as I said Mr Wodehouse was took bad? It was between ourselves, Mr Wentworth. Persons don't like, especially when they've got to that age, and are of a full 'abit of body, to have every little attack made a talk about. You'll excuse me mentioning it, sir, but it was as between ourselves."

"Perhaps you'd like me to show you my note," said the Curate, with a smile; which, indeed, Elsworthy would have very much liked, could he have ventured to say so. Mr Wentworth was but too glad of an excuse to write and explain his absence. The note was not to Lucy, however, though various little epistles full of the business of the district had pa.s.sed between the two:--

"DEAR MISS W.,--I hear your father is not quite well. I can't call just now, as I am going to dine with my aunts, who are at the Blue Boar; but, if you will pardon the lateness of the hour, I will call as I return to ask for him.--Ever yours,

"F. C. WENTWORTH."

Such was the Curate's note. While he scribbled it, little Rosa stood apart watching him with admiring eyes. He had said she was too pretty to be sent across Grange Lane by herself at this hour, though it was still no more than twilight; and he looked up at her for an instant as he said the words,--quite enough to set Rosa's poor little heart beating with childish romantical excitement. If she could but have peeped into the note to see what he said!--for perhaps, after all, there might not be anything "between" him and Miss Lucy--and perhaps-- The poor little thing stood watching, deaf to her aunt's call, looking at the strange ease with which that small epistle was written, and thinking it half divine to have such mastery of words and pen. Mr Wentworth threw it to Sam as if it were a trifle; but Rosa's lively imagination could already conceive the possibility of living upon such trifles and making existence out of them; so the child stood with her pretty curls about her ears, and her bright eyes gleaming dewy over the fair, flushed, rosebud cheeks, in a flutter of roused and innocent imagination antic.i.p.ating her fate. As for Mr Wentworth, it is doubtful whether he saw Rosa, as he swung himself round upon the stool he was seated on, and turned his face towards the door. Somehow he was comforted in his mind by the conviction that it was his duty to call at Mr Wodehouse's as he came back. The evening brightened up and looked less dismal. The illness of the respected father of the house did not oppress the young man. He thought not of the sick-room, but of the low chair in one corner, beside the work-table where Lucy had always basketfuls of sewing in hand. He could fancy he saw the work drop on her knee, and the blue eyes raised. It was a pretty picture that he framed for himself as he looked out with a half smile into the blue twilight through the open door of Elsworthy's shop. And it was clearly his duty to call. He grew almost jocular in the exhilaration of his spirits.

"The Miss Wentworths don't approve of memorial windows, Elsworthy," he said; "and, indeed, if you think it necessary to cut off one of the chief people in Carlingford by way of supplying St Roque's with a little painted gla.s.s--"

"No, sir--no, no, sir; you're too hard upon me--there wasn't no such meaning in my mind; but I don't make no question the ladies were pleased with the church," said Elsworthy, with the satisfaction of a man who had helped to produce an entirely triumphant effect. "I don't pretend to be a judge myself of what you call 'igh art, Mr Wentworth; but if I might venture an opinion, the altar was beautiful; and we won't say nothing about the service, considering, sir--if you won't be offended at putting them together, as one is so far inferior--that both you and me--"

Mr Wentworth laughed and moved off his chair. "We were not appreciated in this instance," he said, with an odd comic look, and then went off into a burst of laughter, which Mr Elsworthy saw no particular occasion for. Then he took up his glove, which he had taken off to write the note, and, nodding a kindly good-night to little Rosa, who stood gazing after him with all her eyes, went away to the Blue Boar.

The idea, however, of his own joint performance with Mr Elsworthy not only tickled the Curate, but gave him a half-ashamed sense of the aspect in which he might himself appear to the eyes of matter-of-fact people who differed with him. The joke had a slight sting, which brought his laughter to an end. He went up through the lighted street to the inn, wishing the dinner over, and himself on his way back again to call at Mr Wodehouse's. For, to tell the truth, by this time he had almost exhausted Skelmersdale, and, feeling in himself not much different now from what he was when his hopes were still green, had begun to look upon life itself with a less troubled eye, and to believe in other chances which might make Lucy's society practicable once more. It was in this altered state of mind that he presented himself before his aunts. He was less self-conscious, less watchful, more ready to amuse them, if that might happen to be possible, and in reality much more able to cope with Miss Leonora than when he had been more anxious about her opinion. He had not been two minutes in the room before all the three ladies perceived this revolution, and each in her own mind attempted to account for it. They were experienced women in their way, and found a variety of reasons; but as none of them were young, and as people _will_ forget how youth feels, not one of them divined the fact that there was no reason, but that this improvement of spirits arose solely from the fact that the Perpetual Curate had been for two whole days miserable about Skelmersdale, and had exhausted all his powers of misery--and that now youth had turned the tables, and he was still to see Lucy tonight.

CHAPTER VII.

"Your Rector is angry at some of your proceedings," said Miss Leonora.

"I did not think a man of your views would have cared for missionary work. I should have supposed that you would think that vulgar, and Low-Church, and Evangelical. Indeed, I thought I heard you say you didn't believe in preaching, Frank?--neither do I, when a man preaches the Tracts for the Times. I was surprised to hear what you were doing at the place they call Wharfside."

"First let me correct you in two little inaccuracies," said Mr Wentworth, blandly, as he peeled his orange. "The Rector of Carlingford is not _my_ rector, and I don't preach the Tracts for the Times. Let us always be particular, my dear aunt, as to points of fact."

"Exactly so," said Miss Leonora, grimly; "but, at the same time, as there seems no great likelihood of your leaving Carlingford, don't you think it would be wise to cultivate friendly relations with the Rector?"

said the iron-grey inexorable aunt, looking full in his eyes as she spoke. So significant and plain a statement took for an instant the colour out of the Curate's cheeks--he pared his orange very carefully while he regained his composure, and it was at least half a minute before he found himself at leisure to reply. Miss Dora of course seized upon the opportunity, and, by way of softening matters, interposed in her unlucky person to make peace.

"But, my dear boy, I said I was sure you did not mean it," said Miss Dora; "I told Mr Morgan I felt convinced it could be explained. n.o.body knows you so well as I do. You were always high-spirited from a child, and never would give in; but I know very well you never could mean it, Frank."