The Perpetual Curate Part 8

Things were in this condition when, of all persons in Carlingford, it occurred to Miss Leonora Wentworth to enter Mr Elsworthy's shop. Not that she was alone, or bent upon any errand of inquiry; for Miss Leonora seldom moved about unattended by her sisters, whom she felt it her duty to take out for exercise; and wonderfully enough, she had not found out yet what was the source of Miss Dora's mysteries and depression, having been still occupied meantime by her own "great work" in her London district, and the affair of the gin-palace, which was still undecided. She had been talking a great deal about this gin-palace for the last twenty-four hours; and to hear Miss Leonora, you might have supposed that all the powers of heaven must fail and be discomfited before this potent instrument of evil, and that, after all, Bibles and missionaries were much less effective than the stoppage of the licence, upon which all her agents were bent. At all events, such an object of interest had swept out from her thoughts the vague figure of her nephew Frank, and aunt Dora's mysterious anxieties on his account. When the three ladies approached Elsworthy's, the first thing that attracted their attention was Rosa, the little Rosa who had been banished from the shop, and whom Mrs Elsworthy believed to be expiating her sins in a back room, in tears and darkness; instead of which the little girl was looking out of her favourite window, and amusing herself much with all that was going on in Grange Lane. Though she was fluttered by the scolding she had received, Rosa only looked prettier than usual with her flushed cheeks; and so many things had been put into her nonsensical little head during the last two days, especially by her aunt's denunciations, that her sense of self-importance was very much heightened in consequence. She looked at the Miss Wentworths with a throb of mingled pride and alarm, wondering whether perhaps she might know more of them some day, if Mr Wentworth was really fond of her, as people said--which thought gave Rosa a wonderful sensation of awe and delighted vanity. Meanwhile the three Miss Wentworths looked at her with very diverse feelings. "I must speak to these people about that little girl, if n.o.body else has sense enough to do it," said Miss Leonora; "she is evidently going wrong as fast as she can, the little fool;" and the iron-grey sister went into Mr Elsworthy's in this perfectly composed and ordinary frame of mind, with her head full of the application which was to be made to the licensing magistrates today, in the parish of St Michael, and totally unaware that anybody belonging to herself could ever be connected with the incautious little coquette at the window. Miss Dora's feelings were very different. It was much against her will that she was going at all into this obnoxious shop, and the eyes which she hastily uplifted to the window and withdrew again with lively disgust and dislike, were both angry and tearful; "Little forward shameless thing," Miss Dora said to herself, with a little toss of her head. As for Miss Wentworth, it was not her custom to say anything--but she, too, looked up, and saw the pretty face at the window, and secretly concluded that it might all be quite true, and that she had known a young man make a fool of himself before now for such another. So they all went in, unwitting that they came at the end of a domestic hurricane, and that the waters were still in a state of disturbance.

Miss Wentworth took the only chair, as was natural, and sat down sweetly to wait for Leonora, and Miss Dora lingered behind while her sister made her purchases. Miss Leonora wanted some books--

"And I came here," she said, with engaging candour, "because I see no other shop in this part of the town except Masters's, which, of course, I would not enter. It is easy enough to do without books, but I can't afford to compromise my principles, Mr Elsworthy;" to which Mr Elsworthy had replied, "No, ma'am, of course not--such a thing aint to be expected;" with one eye upon his customer, and one upon his belligerent wife.

"And, by the by, if you will permit me to speak about what does not concern me," said Miss Leonora cheerfully, "I think you should look after that little girl of yours more carefully;--recollect I don't mean any offence; but she's very pretty, you know, and very young, and vain, as a matter of course. I saw her the other evening going down Grange Lane, a great deal too late for such a creature to be out; and though I don't doubt, you are very particular where she goes--"

It was at this conjuncture that Mrs Elsworthy, who could not keep silence any longer, broke in ardently, with all her knitting-needles in front of her, disposed like a kind of porcupine mail--

"I'm well known in Carlingford--better known than most," said Mrs Elsworthy, with a sob; "such a thing as not being particular was never named to me. I strive and I toil from morning to night, as all things should be respectable and kep' in good order; but what's the good?

Here's my heart broken, that's all; and Elsworthy standing gaping like a gaby as he is. There aint nothing as don't go contrairy, when folks is tied to a set of fools!" cried the indignant matron. "As for pretty, I don't know nothing about it; I've got too much to do minding my own business. Them as has nothing to think of but stand in the shop and twiddle their thumbs, ought to look to that; but, ma'am, if you'll believe me, it aint no fault of mine. It aint my will to throw her in any young gentleman's way; not to say a clergyman as we're bound to respect. Whatever you does, ladies,--and I shouldn't wonder at your taking away your custom, nor nothing else as was a punishment--don't blame me!"

"But you forget, Mrs Elsworthy, that we have nothing to do with it,--nothing at all; my nephew knows very well what he is about," said Miss Dora, in injudicious haste. "Mr Wentworth is not at all likely to forget himself," continued that poor lady, getting confused as her sister turned round and stared at her. "Of course it was all out of kindness;--I--I know Frank did not mean anything," cried the unfortunate aunt. Leonora's look, as she turned round and fixed her eyes upon her, took away what little breath Miss Dora had.

"Mr Wentworth?" asked Miss Leonora; "I should be glad to know, if anybody would inform me, what Mr Wentworth can possibly have to do with it? I daresay you misunderstood me; I said you were to look after that little girl--your niece, or whatever she is; I did not say anything about Mr Wentworth," said the strong-minded sister, looking round upon them all. For the moment she forgot all about the licence, and turned upon Mr Elsworthy with an emphasis which almost drive that troubled citizen to his knees.

"That was how I understood it," said the clerk of St Roque's, humbly; "there wasn't nothing said about Mr Wentworth--nor there couldn't be as I know of, but what was in his favour, for there aint many young men like our clergyman left in the Church. It aint because I'm speaking to respected ladies as is his relations; folks may talk,"

said Mr Elsworthy, with a slight faltering, "but I never see his equal; and as for an act of kindness to an orphan child--"

"The orphan child is neither here nor there," said his angry wife, who had taken up her post by his side; "a dozen fathers and mothers couldn't have done better by her than we've done; and to go and lay out her snares for them as is so far above her, if you'll believe me, ma'am, it's nigh broken my heart. She's neither flesh nor blood o'

mine," cried the aggrieved woman; "there would have been a different tale to tell if she had belonged to me. I'd have--murdered her, ma'am, though it aint proper to say so, afore we'd have gone and raised a talk like this; it aint my blame, if it was my dying word," cried Mrs Elsworthy, relapsing into angry tears: "I'm one as has always shown her a good example, and never gone flirting about, nor cast my eyes to one side or another for the best man as ever walked; and to think as a respectable family should be brought to shame through her doings, and a gentleman as is a clergyman got himself talked about--it's gone nigh to kill me, that's what it's done," sobbed the virtuous matron; "and I don't see as n.o.body cares."

Miss Leonora had been woke up suddenly out of her abstract occupations; she penetrated to the heart of the matter while all this talk was going on. She transfixed her sister Dora, who seemed much inclined to cry like Mrs Elsworthy, with a look which overwhelmed that trembling woman; then she addressed herself with great suavity to the matter in hand.

"I suppose it is this poor little foolish child who has been getting herself talked about?" said Miss Leonora. "It's a pity, to be sure, but I daresay it's not so bad as you think. As for her laying snares for people above her, I wouldn't be afraid of that. Poor little thing!

It's not so easy as you think laying snares. Perhaps it's the new minister at Salem Chapel who has been paying attention to her? I would not take any notice of it if I were you. Don't let her loll about at the window as she's doing, and don't let her go out so late, and give her plenty of work to do. My maid wants some one to help in her needlework. Perhaps this child would do, Cecilia?" said Miss Leonora.

"As for her snares, poor thing, I don't feel much afraid of them. I daresay if Mr Wentworth had Sunday cla.s.ses for the young people as I wished him to have, and took pains to give them proper instruction, such things would not happen. If you send her to my maid, I flatter myself she will soon come to her senses. Good morning; and you will please to send me the books--there are some others I want you to get for me next week," said Mr Elsworthy's patroness. "I will follow you, Dora, please," and Miss Leonora swept her sisters out before her, and went upon her way with indescribable grandeur. Even little Rosa felt the change, where she sat at the window looking out. The little vain creature no longer felt it possible to believe, as she looked after them, that she ever could be anything to the Miss Wentworths except a little girl in a shop. It shook her confidence in what people said; and it was as well for her that she withdrew from the window at that conjuncture, and so had an opportunity of hearing her aunt come up-stairs, and of darting back again to the penitential darkness of her own chamber at the back of the house--which saved Rosa some angry words at least.

As for Miss Leonora Wentworth, she said nothing to her sisters on this new subject. She saw them safely home to their own apartments, and went out again without explaining her movements. When she was gone, Miss Wentworth listened to Miss Dora's doubts and tears with her usual patience, but did not go into the matter much. "It doesn't matter whether it is your fault or not," said aunt Cecilia, with a larger amount of words than usual, and a sharpness very uncommon with her; "but I daresay Leonora will set it all right." After all, the confidence which the elder sister had in Leonora was justified. She did not entirely agree with her about the "great work," nor was disposed to connect the non-licensing of the gin-palace in any way with the faithfulness of G.o.d: but she comprehended in her gentle heart that there were other matters of which Leonora was capable. As for Miss Dora, she went to the summer-house at last, and, seating herself at the window, cried under her breath till she had a very bad headache, and was of no use for any purpose under heaven. She thought nothing less than that Leonora had gone abroad to denounce poor Frank, and tell everybody how wicked he was; and she was so sure her poor dear boy did not mean anything! She sat with her head growing heavier and heavier, watching for her sister's return, and calculating within herself how many places Leonora must have called at, and how utterly gone by this time must be the character of the Perpetual Curate. At last, in utter despair, with her thin curls all limp about her poor cheeks, Miss Dora had to go to bed and have the room darkened, and swallow cups of green tea and other nauseous compounds, at the will and pleasure of her maid, who was learned in headache. The poor lady sobbed herself to sleep after a time, and saw, in a hideous dream, her sister Leonora marching from house to house of poor Frank's friends, and closing door after door with all sorts of clang and dash upon the returning prodigal. "But oh, it was not my fault--oh, my dear, she found it out herself. You do not think _I_ was to blame?" sobbed poor aunt Dora in her troubled slumber; and her headache did not get any better notwithstanding the green tea.

Miss Dora's visions were partly realised, for it was quite true that her iron-grey sister was making a round of calls upon Frank's friends.

Miss Leonora Wentworth went out in great state that day. She had her handsomest dress on, and the bonnet which her maid had calculated upon as her own property, because it was much too nice for Miss Leonora. In this impossible attire she went to see Mrs Hadwin, and was very gracious to that unsuspecting woman, and learned a few things of which she had not the least conception previously. Then she went to the Miss Wodehouses, and made the elder sister there mighty uncomfortable by her keen looks and questions; and what Miss Leonora did after that was not distinctly known to any one. She got into p.r.i.c.kett's Lane somehow, and stumbled upon No. 10, much to the surprise of the inhabitants; and before she returned home she had given Mrs Morgan her advice about the Virginian creeper which was intended to conceal the continual pa.s.sage of the railway trains. "But I would not trust to trellis-work. I would build up the wall a few feet higher, and then you will have some satisfaction in your work," said Miss Leonora, and left the Rector's wife to consider the matter in rather an agreeable state of mind, for that had been Mrs Morgan's opinion all along. After this last visit the active aunt returned home, going leisurely along George Street, and down Grange Lane, with meditative steps. Miss Leonora, of course, would not for kingdoms have confessed that any new light had come into her mind, or that some very ordinary people in Carlingford, no one of whom she could have confidently affirmed to be a converted person, had left a certain vivid and novel impression upon her thoughts. She went along much more slowly than usual in this new mood of reflectiveness. She was not thinking of the licensing magistrates of St Michael's nor the beautiful faith of the colporteur. Other ideas filled her mind at the moment. Whether perhaps, after all, a man who did his duty by rich and poor, and could encounter all things for love and duty's sake, was not about the best man for a parish priest, even though he did have choristers in white surplices, and lilies on the Easter altar? Whether it might not be a comfort to know that in the pretty parsonage at Skelmersdale there was some one ready to start at a moment's notice for the help of a friend or the succour of a soul--brother to Charley who won the Cross for valour, and not unworthy of the race? Some strange moisture came into the corners of Miss Leonora's eyes. There was Gerald too, whom the Perpetual Curate had declared to be the best man he ever knew; and the Evangelical woman, with all her prejudices, could not in her heart deny it. Various other thoughts of a similar description, but too shadowy to bear expression, came in spite of herself through Miss Leonora's mind. "We know that G.o.d heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of G.o.d and doeth His will, him He heareth;" and it occurred to her vaguely, for the first time, that she was harder to please than her Master. Not that such an idea could get possession of a mind so well fortified, at the first a.s.sault; but it was strange how often the thought came back to her that the man who had thrilled through all those people about p.r.i.c.kett's Lane a kind of vague sense that they were Christians, and not hopeless wretches, forgotten of G.o.d; and who had taken in the mysterious lodger at Mrs Hadwin's, bearing the penalty of suspicion without complaint, would be true at his post wherever he might be, and was a priest of G.o.d's appointing. Such were the strangely novel ideas which went flashing through Miss Leonora's mind as she went home to dinner, ejecting summarily the new gin-palaces and her favourite colporteur. If anybody had stated them in words, she would have indignantly scouted such lat.i.tudinarian stuff; but they kept flickering in the strangest fluctuations, coming and going, bringing in native Wentworth prejudices and natural affections to overcome all other prepossessions, in the most inveterate, unexplainable way. For it will be apparent that Miss Leonora, being a woman of sense, utterly scorned the Rosa Elsworthy hypothesis, and comprehended as nearly how it happened as it was possible for any one unaware of the facts to do.

Such were the good and bad angels who fought over the Curate's fate while he was away. He might have been anxious if he had known anything about them, or had been capable of imagining any such clouds as those which overshadowed his good name in the lively imagination of Carlingford. But Rosa Elsworthy never could have occurred to the unconscious young man as a special danger, any more than the relenting in the heart of his aunt Leonora could have dawned upon him as a possible happiness. To tell the truth, he had left home, so far as he himself was concerned, in rather a happy state of mind than otherwise, with healthful impulses of opposition to the Rector, and confidence in the sympathy of Lucy. To hear that Lucy had given him up, and that Miss Leonora and Mrs Morgan were the only people who believed in him, would have gone pretty far at this moment to make an end of the Perpetual Curate. But fortunately he knew nothing about it; and while Lucy held her head high with pain, and walked over the burning coals a conscious martyr, and Miss Dora sobbed herself asleep in her darkened room, all on his account, there was plenty of trouble, perplexity, and distress in Wentworth Rectory to occupy to the full all the thoughts and powers of the Curate of St Roque's.

CHAPTER XV.

It was mid-day, and more than twelve hours after he had left Carlingford, before Mr Wentworth reached the Rectory. He had s.n.a.t.c.hed a few hours'

sleep in London, where he was obliged to pause because of the trains, which did not correspond; and accordingly, though he was very anxious about Gerald, it was with a mien and gait very much like his usual appearance that he jumped out of the railway carriage at the little station which was on his father's property, and where everybody knew the Squire's son. Left in entire uncertainty as he was in respect to the trouble which had overtaken his brother, it was a little comfort to the Curate to find that everybody looked surprised to see him, and that n.o.body seemed to know of any cause demanding his presence. All was well at the Hall, so far as the station-master knew; and as for the Rector, he had no special place in the local report which the handiest porter supplied "Mr Frank"--a blessed neglect, which was very consolatory to the heart of the anxious brother, to whom it became evident that nothing had happened, and who began to hope that Gerald's wife, who never was very wise, had been seized with some merely fantastic terror. With this hope he walked on briskly upon the familiar road to his brother's house, recovering his courage, and falling back upon his own thoughts, and at last taking pleasure in the idea of telling all his troubles to Gerald, and getting strength and enlightenment from his advice. He had come quite into this view of the subject when he arrived at the Rectory, and saw the pretty old-fashioned house, with its high ivied garden-walls, and the famous cedar on the lawn, standing all secure and sweet in the early sunshine, like something too steadfast to be moved, as if sorrow or conflict could never enter there. Unconsciously to himself, the perfect tranquillity of everything altered the entire scope of Frank Wentworth's thoughts. He was no longer in anxiety about his brother. He was going to ask Gerald's advice upon his own troubles, and lay the difficulties and dangers of his position before the clear and lucid eyes of the best man he ever knew.

It shook him a little out of his position, however, to find himself admitted with a kind of scared expectation by Mrs Gerald Wentworth's maid, who made no exclamation of wonder at the sight of him, but opened the door in a troubled, stealthy way, strangely unlike the usual customs of the place. "Is my brother at home?" said the Curate, going in with a step that rang on the hall, and a voice that sounded into the house. He would have proceeded straight, as usual, to Gerald's study after this question, which was one of form merely, but for the disturbed looks of the woman, who put up her hand imploringly.

"Oh hush! Mr Frank; hush! My mistress wants to see you first. She said I was to show you into her sitting-room," said the maid, half in a whisper, and led him hastily down a side-pa.s.sage to a little out-of-the-way room, which he knew was where Louisa was wont to retire when she had her headaches, as was well known to all the house of Wentworth. The Curate went in with some impatience and some alarm to this retired apartment. His eyes, dazzled by the sunshine, could not penetrate at first the shadowy greenness of the room, which, what with the trees without and the Venetian blind within, was lost in a kind of twilight, grateful enough after a while, but bewildering at the first moment. Out of this darkness somebody rose as he entered, and walked into his arms with trembling eagerness. "Oh Frank, I am so thankful you are come! now perhaps something may be done; for _you_ always understood," said his little sister-in-law, reaching up to kiss him.

She was a tiny little woman, with soft eyes and a tender little blooming face, which he had never before seen obscured by any cloud, or indeed moved by any particular sentiment. Now the firmament was all overcast, and Louisa, it was evident, had been sitting in the shade of her drawn blinds, having a quiet cry, and going into all her grievances.

To see such a serene creature all clouded over and full of tears, gave the Curate a distinct shock of alarm and anxiety. He led her back to her sofa, seeing clearer and clearer, as he watched her face, the plaintive lines of complaint, the heavy burden of trouble which she was about to cast on his shoulders. He grew more and more afraid as he looked at her.

"Is Gerald ill?" he said, with a thrill of terror; but even this could scarcely account for the woeful look of all the accessories to the picture.

"Oh, Frank, I am so glad you are come!" said Louisa through her tears.

"I felt sure you would come when you got my letter. Your father thinks I make a fuss about nothing, and Cuthbert and Guy do nothing but laugh at me, as if they could possibly know; but you always understand me, Frank. I knew it was just as good as sending for a brother of my own; indeed better," said Mrs Wentworth, wiping her eyes; "for though Gerald is using me so badly, I would not expose him out of his own family, or have people making remarks--oh, not for the world!"

"Expose him!" said the Curate, with unutterable astonishment. "You don't mean to say you have any complaint to make about Gerald?" The idea was so preposterous that Frank Wentworth laughed; but it was not a laugh pleasant to hear.

"Oh, Frank, if you but knew all," said Louisa; "what I have had to put up with for months--all my best feelings outraged, and so many things to endure that were dreadful to think of. And I that was always brought up so differently; but now," cried the poor little woman, bursting into renewed tears, "it's come to such a pa.s.s that it can't be concealed any longer. I think it will break my heart; people will be sure to say I have been to blame; and how I am ever to hold up my head in society, and what is to be my name, and whether I am to be considered a widow--"

"A widow!" cried the Perpetual Curate, in utter consternation.

"Or worse," sobbed Gerald's poor little wife: "it feels like being divorced--as if one had done something wrong; and I am sure I never did anything to deserve it; but when your husband is a Romish priest,"

cried the afflicted woman, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, "I would just ask anybody what are you? You can't be his wife, because he is not allowed to have any wife; and you can't go back to your maiden name, because of the children; and how can you have any place in society? Oh, Frank, I think I shall go distracted," said poor Louisa; "it will feel as if one had done something wicked, and been put out of the pale. How can I be called Mrs Wentworth any more when my husband has left me? and even if he is a priest, and can't have any wife, still he will be alive, and I shall not have the satisfaction of being a widow even. I am sure I don't know what I say," she concluded, with a fresh outburst; "for to be a widow would be a poor satisfaction, and I don't know how I could ever, ever live without Gerald; but to feel as if you were an improper person, and all the children's prospects in life!--Oh, Frank!" cried the weeping Louisa, burying her face in her handkerchief, "I think I shall go distracted, and my heart will break."

To all this strange and unexpected revelation the startled Curate listened like a man in a dream. Possibly his sister-in-law's representation of this danger, as seen entirely from her own point of view, had a more alarming effect upon him that any other statement of the case. He could have gone into Gerald's difficulties with so much sympathy and fellow-feeling that the shock would have been trifling in comparison; and between Rome and the highest level of Anglicanism there was no such difference as to frighten the accustomed mind of the Curate of St Roque's. But, seen from Louisa's side, matters appeared very different: here the foundations of the earth were shaking, and life itself going to pieces; even the absurdity of her distress made the whole business more real; and the poor little woman, whose trouble was that she herself would neither be a wife nor a widow, had enough of truth on her side to unfold a miserable picture to the eyes of the anxious spectator. He did not know what answer to make her; and perhaps it was a greater consolation to poor Louisa to be permitted to run on--

"And you know it never needed to have come to this if Gerald had been like other people," she said, drying her tears, and with a tone of remonstrance. "Of course it is a family living, and it is not likely his own father would have made any disturbance; and there is no other family in the parish but the Skipwiths, and they are great friends, and never would have said a word. He might have preached in six surplices if he had liked," cried poor Louisa--"who would have minded?

And as for confession, and all that, I don't believe there is anybody in the world who had done any wrong that could have helped confessing to Gerald; he is so good--oh, Frank, you know he is so good!" said the exasperated little wife, overcome with fondness and admiration and impatience, "and there is n.o.body in the parish that I ever heard of that does not worship him; but when I tell him so, he never pays the least attention. And then Edward Plumstead and he go on talking about subscription, and signing articles, and nonsense, till they make my head swim. n.o.body, I am sure, wants Gerald to subscribe or sign articles. I am sure I would subscribe any amount," cried the poor little woman, once more falling into tears--"a thousand pounds if I had it, Frank--only to make him hear reason; for why should he leave Wentworth, where he can do what he likes, and n.o.body will interfere with him? The Bishop is an old friend of my father's, and I am sure he never would say anything; and as for candles and crosses and--anything he pleases, Frank--"

Here poor Louisa paused, and put her hand on his arm, and looked up wistfully into his face. She wanted to convince herself that she was right, and that the faltering dread she had behind all this, of something more mysterious than candles or crosses--something which she did not attempt to understand--was no real spectre after all. "Oh, Frank, I am sure I never would oppose him, nor your father, nor anybody; and why should he go and take some dreadful step, and upset everything?" said Mrs Wentworth. "Oh, Frank! we will not even have enough to live upon; and as for me, if Gerald leaves me, how shall I ever hold up my head again, or how will anybody know how to behave to me? I can't call myself Miss Leighton again, after being married so long; and if I am not his wife, what shall I be?" Her crying became hysterical as she came back to this point; and Mr Wentworth sat by her trying to soothe her, as wretched as herself.

"But I must see Gerald, Louisa," said the Curate; "he has never written to me about this. Perhaps things have not gone so far as you think; but as for the crosses and the candles, you know, and not being interfered with--"

"I would promise to do anything he likes," cried the weeping woman. "I never would worry him any more about anything. After aunt Leonora was here, perhaps I said things I should not have said; but, oh Frank, whatever he likes to do I am sure I will give in to it. I don't _really_ mind seeing him preach in his surplice, only you know poor papa was so _very_ Low-Church; and as for the candles, what are they to pleasing one's husband? Oh, Frank, if you would only tell him--I can't argue about things like a man--tell him n.o.body will ever interfere, and he shall do whatever he pleases. I trust to you to say _everything_," said the poor wife. "You can reason with him and explain things. n.o.body understands Gerald like you. You will not forsake me in my trouble, Frank? I thought immediately of you. I knew you could help us, if anybody could. You will tell him all I have said," she continued, rising as Mr Wentworth rose, and going after him to the door, to impress once more upon him the necessities of the case. "Oh, Frank, remember how much depends upon it!--everything in the world for me, and all the children's prospects in life; and he would be miserable himself if he were to leave us. You know he would?"

said Louisa, looking anxiously into his face, and putting her hand on his arm. "Oh, Frank, you don't think Gerald could be happy without the children--and me?"

The terrible thought silenced her. She stopped crying, and a kind of tearless horror and dread came over her face. She was not very wise, but her heart was tender and full of love in its way. What if perhaps this life, which had gone so smoothly over her unthinking head without any complications, should turn out to be a lie, and her happiness a mere delusion? She could not have put her thoughts into words, but the doubt suddenly came over her, putting a stop to all her lamentations.

If perhaps Gerald _could_ be happy without the children and herself, what dreadful fiction had all her joy been built upon! Such an inarticulate terror seemed to stop the very beating of her heart. It was not a great calamity only but an overthrowal of all confidence in life; and she shivered before it like a dumb creature piteously beholding an approaching agony which it could not comprehend. The utterance of her distress was arrested upon her lips,--she looked up to her brother with an entreating look, so suddenly intensified and grown desperate that he was startled by it. It alarmed him so much that he turned again to lead her back to her sofa, wondering what momentary pa.s.sion it could be which had woke such a sudden world of confused meaning in Louisa's eyes.

"You may be sure he could not," said the Curate, warmly. "Not happy, certainly; but to men like Gerald there are things in the world dearer than happiness," he said, after a little pause, with a sigh, wondering to himself whether, if Lucy Wodehouse were his, his dearest duty could make him consent to part with her. "If he thinks of such a step, he must think of it as of martyrdom--is that a comfort to you?"

he continued, bending, in his pity and wonder, over the trembling wife, who burst forth into fresh tears as he spoke, and forgot her momentary horror.

"Oh, Frank, go and speak to him, and tell him how miserable I am, and what a dreadful thing it would be; tell him everything, Frank. Oh, don't leave him till you have persuaded him. Go, go; never mind me," cried Mrs Wentworth; and then she went to the door after him once more--"Don't say I sent for you. He--he might not be pleased," she said, in her faltering, eager voice; "and oh, Frank, consider how much hangs upon what you say." When he left her, Louisa stood at the door watching him as he went along the pa.s.sage towards her husband's room. It was a forlorn-hope; but still the unreasoning, uncomprehending heart took a little comfort from it. She watched his figure disappearing along the narrow pa.s.sage with a thrill of mingled anxiety and hope; arguing with Gerald, though it was so ineffectual when she tried it, might still be of some avail in stronger hands. His brother understood him, and could talk to him better than anybody else could; and though she had never convinced anybody of anything all her life, Mrs Wentworth had an inalienable confidence in the effect of "being talked to." In the momentary stimulus she went back to her darkened room and drew up the blind, and went to work in a tremulous way; but as the slow time went on, and Frank did not return, poor Louisa's courage failed her; her fingers refused their office, and she began to imagine all sorts of things that might be going on in Gerald's study. Perhaps the argument might be going the wrong way; perhaps Gerald might be angry at his brother's interference; perhaps they might come to words--they who had been such good friends--and it would be her fault. She jumped up with her heart beating loud when she heard a door opened somewhere; but when n.o.body came, grew sick and faint, and hid her face, in the impatience of her misery. Then the feeling grew upon her that those precious moments were decisive, and that she must make one last appeal, or her heart would burst. She tried to resist the impulse in a feeble way, but it was not her custom to resist impulses, and it got the better of her; and this was why poor Louisa rushed into the library, just as Frank thought he had made a little advance in his pleading, and scattered his eloquence to the winds with a set of dreadful arguments which were all her own.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Curate of St Roque's found his brother in his library, looking very much as he always looked at first glance. But Gerald was not reading nor writing nor doing anything. He was seated in his usual chair, by his usual table, with all the ordinary things around. Some ma.n.u.script--lying loosely about, and looking as if he had thrown down his pen in disgust, and pushed it away from him in the middle of a sentence--was on the table, and an open book in his other hand; but neither the book nor the ma.n.u.script occupied him; he was sitting leaning his head in his hands, gazing blankly out through the window, as it appeared, at the cedar, which flung its serene shadow over the lawn outside. He jumped up at the sound of his brother's voice, but seemed to recall himself with a little difficulty even for that, and did not look much surprised to see him. In short, Frank read in Gerald's eyes that he would not at that moment have been surprised to see any one, and that, in his own consciousness, the emergency was great enough to justify any unlooked-for appearance, though it might be from heaven or from the grave.

"I am glad you have come," he said, after they had greeted each other, his mouth relaxing ever so slightly into the ghost of his old smile; "you and I always understood each other, and it appears I want interpretation now. And one interpretation supposes many," he said with a gleam, half of pathos half of amus.e.m.e.nt, lighting up his face for a moment; "there is no such thing as accepting a simple version even of one man's thoughts. You have come at a very fit time, Frank--that is, for me."

"I am glad you think so," said the other brother; and then there was a pause, neither liking to enter upon the grand subject which stood between them.

"Have you seen Louisa?" said Gerald. He spoke like a man who was ill, in a preoccupied interrupted way. Like a sick man, he was occupied with himself, with the train of thought which was always going on in his mind whatever he might be doing, whether he was working or resting, alone or in company. For months back he had carried it with him everywhere. The cedar-tree outside, upon which his thoughtful eyes fell as he looked straight before him out of the library window, was all garlanded with the reasonings and questionings of this painful spring. To Frank's eyes, Gerald's attention was fixed upon the fluttering of a certain twig at the extremity of one of those broad solemn immovable branches. Gerald, however, saw not the twig, but one of his hardest difficulties which was twined and twined in the most inextricable way round that little sombre cl.u.s.ter of spikes; and so kept looking out, not at the cedar, but at the whole confused yet distinct array of his own troubled thoughts.

"If you have seen Louisa, she has been talking to you, no doubt," he said, after another little pause, with again the glimmer of a smile. "We have fallen upon troubles, and we don't understand each other, Frank.

That's all very natural; she does not see things from my point of view: I could not expect she should. If I could see from hers, it might be easier for us all; but that is still less to be expected; and it is hard upon her, Frank--very hard," said Gerald, turning round in his old ingenuous way, with that faculty for seeing other people's difficulties which was so strong a point in his character. "She is called upon to make, after all, perhaps, the greater sacrifice of the two; and she does not see any duty in it--the reverse, indeed. She thinks it a sin. It is a strange view of life, to look at it from Louisa's point. Here will be an unwilling, unintentional martyrdom; and it is hard to think I should take all the merit, and leave my poor little wife the suffering without any compensation!" He began to walk up and down the room with uneasy steps, as if the thought was painful, and had to be got rid of by some sudden movement. "It must be that G.o.d reckons with women for what they have endured, as with men for what they have done," said Gerald. He spoke with a kind of grieved certainty, which made his brother feel, to start with, the hopelessness of all argument.