"Ladies don't understand such matters," said the Rector, who had been kept at bay so long that he began to get desperate. "I beg your pardon, my dear, but it is not a matter for you to discuss. We shall take good care that there is plenty of evidence," said the perplexed man—"I mean, before we proceed to do anything," he added, growing very red and confused. When Mr Morgan caught his wife's eye, he got as nearly into a passion as was possible for so good a man. "You know what I mean," he said, in his peremptory way; "and, my dear, you will forgive me for saying this is not a matter to be discussed before a lady." When he had uttered this bold speech, the Rector took a few little walks up and down the room, not caring, however, to look at his wife. He was ashamed of the feeling he had that her absence would set him much more at ease with Elsworthy, but still could not help being conscious that it was so. He did not say anything more, but he walked up and down the room with sharp short steps, and betrayed his impatience very manifestly. As for Mrs Morgan, who was a sensible woman, she saw that the time had come for her to retire from the field.
"I think the first thing to be done is to try every possible means of finding the girl," she said, getting up from her seat; "but I have no doubt what you decide upon will be the best. You will find me in the drawing-room when you want me, William." Perhaps her absence for the first moment was not such a relief to her husband as he had expected. The mildness of her parting words made it very apparent that she did not mean to take offence; and he perceived suddenly, at a glance, that he would have to tell her all he was going to do, and encounter her criticism single-handed, which was rather an appalling prospect to the Rector. Mrs Morgan, for her part, went up-stairs not without a little vexation, certainly, but with a comforting sense of the opportunity which awaited her. She felt that, in his unprotected position, as soon as she left him, the Rector would conduct himself rashly, and that her time was still to come.
The Rector went back to the hearthrug when his wife left the room, but in the heat of his own personal reflections he did not say anything to Elsworthy, who still stood smoothing his hat in his hand. On the whole, Mr Morgan was rather aggravated for the moment by the unlucky cause of this little encounter, and was not half so well disposed towards Mr Wentworth's enemy as half an hour before, when he recognised his wife as the champion of the Curate, and felt controlled by her presence; for the human and even the clerical mind has its impulses of perversity. He began to get very impatient of Elsworthy's hat, and the persistent way in which he worked at it with his hands.
"I suppose you would not be so certain about it if you had not satisfactory evidence?" he said, turning abruptly, and even a little angrily, upon the supplicant; for Mr Morgan naturally resented his own temper and the little semi-quarrel he had got into upon the third person who was the cause of all.
"Sir," said Elsworthy, with eagerness, "it aint no wonder to me as the lady takes Mr Wentworth's part. A poor man don't stand no chance against a young gentleman as has had every advantage. It's a thing as I'm prepared for, and it don't have no effect upon me. A lady as is so respected and thought a deal of both in town and country—"
"I was not speaking of my wife," said the Rector, hastily, "don't you think you had better put down your hat? I think you said it was on Friday it occurred. It will be necessary to take down the facts in a business-like way," said Mr Morgan, drawing his chair towards the table and taking up his pen. This was how the Rector was occupied when Thomas announced the most unexpected of all possible visitors, Mr Proctor, who had been Mr Morgan's predecessor in Carlingford. Thomas announced his old master with great solemnity as "the late Rector"—a title which struck the present incumbent with a sense of awe not unnatural in the circumstances. He jumped up from his chair and let his pen fall out of his startled fingers when his old friend came in. They had eaten many a good dinner together in the revered hall of All-Souls, and as the familiar countenance met his eyes, perhaps a regretful thought of that Elysium stole across the mind of the late Fellow, who had been so glad to leave the sacred brotherhood, and marry, and become as other men. He gave but a few hurried words of surprise and welcome to his visitor, and then, with a curious counterpoise of sentiment, sent him up-stairs to see "my wife," feeling, even while half envious of him, a kind of superiority and half contempt for the man who was not a Rector and married, but had given up both these possibilities. When he sent him up-stairs to see "my wife," Mr Morgan looked after the elderly celibate with a certain pity. One always feels more inclined to take the simple view of any matter—to stand up for injured innocence, and to right the wronged—when one feels one's self better off than one's neighbours. A reverse position is apt to detract from the simplicity of one's conceptions, and to suggest two sides to the picture. When Mr Proctor was gone, the Rector addressed himself with great devotion to Elsworthy and his evidence. It could not be doubted, at least, that the man was in earnest, and believed what he said; and things unquestionably looked rather ugly for Mr Wentworth. Mr Morgan took down all about the Curate's untimely visit to Elsworthy on the night when he took Rosa home; and when he came to the evidence of the Miss Hemmings, who had seen the Curate talking to the unfortunate little girl at his own door the last time she was seen in Carlingford, the Rector shook his head with a prolonged movement, half of satisfaction, half of regret; for, to be sure, he had made up his mind beforehand who the culprit was, and it was to a certain extent satisfactory to have his opinion confirmed.
"This looks very bad, very bad, I am sorry to say," said Mr Morgan; "for the unhappy young man's own sake, an investigation is absolutely necessary. As for you, Elsworthy, everybody must be sorry for you. Have you no idea where he could have taken the poor girl?—that is," said the uncautious Rector, "supposing that he is guilty—of which I am afraid there does not seem much doubt."
"There aint no doubt," said Elsworthy; "there aint nobody else as could have done it. Just afore my little girl was took away, sir, Mr Wentworth went off of a sudden, and it was said as he was a-going home to the Hall. I was a-thinking of sending a letter anonymous, to ask if it was known what he was after. I read in the papers the other day as his brother was a-going over to Rome. There don't seem to be none o' them the right sort; which it's terrible for two clergymen. I was thinking of dropping a bit of a note anonymous—"
"No—no—no," said the Rector, "that would never do; nothing of that sort, Elsworthy. If you thought it likely she was there, the proper thing would be to go and inquire; nothing anonymous—no, no; that is a thing I could not possibly countenance," said Mr Morgan. He pushed away his pen and paper, and got very red and uncomfortable. If either of the critics up-stairs, his wife, or his predecessor in the Rectory, could but know that he was having an anonymous letter suggested to him—that anybody ventured to think him capable of being an accomplice in such proceedings! The presence of these two in the house, though they were most probably at the moment engaged in the calmest abstract conversation, and totally unaware of what was going on in the library, had a great effect upon the Rector. He felt insulted that any man could venture to confide such an intention to him almost within the hearing of his wife. "If I am to take up your case, everything must be open and straightforward," said Mr Morgan; while Elsworthy, who saw that he had said something amiss, without precisely understanding what, took up his hat as a resource, and once more began to polish it round and round in his hands.
"I didn't mean no harm, sir, I'm sure," he said; "I don't seem to see no other way o' finding out; for I aint like a rich man as can go and come as he pleases; but I won't say no more, since it's displeasing to you. If you'd give me the list of names, sir, as you have decided on to be the committee, I wouldn't trouble you no longer, seeing as you've got visitors. Perhaps, if the late Rector aint going away directly, he would take it kind to be put on the committee; and he's a gentleman as I've a great respect for, though he wasn't not to say the man for Carlingford," said Elsworthy, with a sidelong look. He began to feel the importance of his own position as the originator of a committee, and at the head of the most exciting movement which had been for a long time in Carlingford, and could not help being sensible, notwithstanding his affliction, that he had a distinction to offer which even the late Rector might be pleased to accept.
"I don't think Mr Proctor will stay," said Mr Morgan; "and if he does stay, I believe he is a friend of Mr Wentworth's." It was only after he had said this that the Rector perceived the meaning of the words he had uttered; then, in his confusion and vexation, he got up hastily from the table, and upset the inkstand in all the embarrassment of the moment. "Of course that is all the greater reason for having his assistance," said Mr Morgan, in his perplexity; "we are all friends of Mr Wentworth. Will you have the goodness to ring the bell? There are few things more painful than to take steps against a brother clergyman, if one did not hope it would be for his benefit in the end. Oh, never mind the table. Be so good as to ring the bell again—louder, please."
"There aint nothing equal to blotting-paper, sir," said Elsworthy, eagerly. "With a bit o' blotting-paper I'd undertake to rub out ink-stains out o' the finest carpet—if you'll permit me. It aint but a small speck, and it'll be gone afore you could look round. It's twenty times better nor lemon-juice, or them poisonous salts as you're always nervous of leaving about. Look you here, sir, if it aint a-sopping up beautiful. There aint no harm done as your respected lady could be put out about; and I'll take the list with me, if you please, to show to my wife, as is a-breaking her heart at home, and can't believe as we'll ever get justice. She says as how the quality always takes a gentleman's part against us poor folks, but that aint been my experience. Don't you touch the carpet, Thomas—there aint a speck to be seen when the blotting-paper's cleared away. I'll go home, not to detain you no more, sir, and cheer up the poor heart as is a-breaking," said Elsworthy, getting up from his knees where he had been operating upon the carpet. He had got in his hand the list of names which Mr Morgan had put down as referees in this painful business, and it dawned faintly upon the Rector for the moment that he himself was taking rather an undignified position as Elsworthy's partisan.
"I have no objection to your showing it to your wife," said Mr Morgan; "but I shall be much displeased if I hear any talk about it, Elsworthy; and I hope it is not revenge you are thinking of, which is a very unchristian sentiment," said the Rector, severely, "and not likely to afford comfort either to her or to you."
"No, sir, nothing but justice," said Elsworthy, hoarsely, as he backed out of the room. Notwithstanding this statement, it was with very unsatisfactory sensations that Mr Morgan went up-stairs. He felt somehow as if the justice which Elsworthy demanded, and which he himself had solemnly declared to be pursuing the Curate of St Roque's, was wonderfully like revenge. "All punishment must be more or less vindictive," he said to himself as he went up-stairs; but that fact did not make him more comfortable as he went into his wife's drawing-room, where he felt more like a conspirator and assassin than an English Rector in broad daylight, without a mystery near him, had any right to feel. This sensation confused Mr Morgan much, and made him more peremptory in his manner than ever. As for Mr Proctor, who was only a spectator, and felt himself on a certain critical eminence, the suggestion that occurred to his mind was, that he had come in at the end of a quarrel, and that the conjugal firmament was still in a state of disturbance: which idea acted upon some private projects in the hidden mind of the Fellow of All-Souls, and produced a state of feeling little more satisfactory than that of the Rector of Carlingford.
"I hope Mr Proctor is going to stay with us for a day or two," said Mrs Morgan. "I was just saying it must look like coming home to come to the house he used to live in, and which was even furnished to his own taste," said the Rector's wife, shooting a little arrow at the late Rector, of which that good man was serenely unconscious. All this time, while they had been talking, Mrs Morgan had scarcely been able to keep from asking who could possibly have suggested such a carpet. Mr Proctor's chair was placed on the top of one of the big bouquets, which expanded its large foliage round him with more than Eastern prodigality—but he was so little conscious of any culpability of his own in the matter, that he had referred his indignant hostess to one of the leaves as an illustration of the kind of diaper introduced into the new window which had lately been put up in the chapel of All-Souls. "A naturalistic treatment, you know," said Mr Proctor, with the utmost serenity; "and some people objected to it," added the unsuspicious man.
"I should have objected very strongly," said Mrs Morgan, with a little flush. "If you call that naturalistic treatment, I consider it perfectly out of place in decoration—of every kind—" Mr Proctor happened to be looking at her at the moment, and it suddenly occurred to him that Miss Wodehouse never got red in that uncomfortable way, which was the only conclusion he drew from the circumstance, having long ago forgotten that any connection had ever existed between himself and the carpet on the drawing-room in Carlingford Rectory. He addressed his next observation to Mr Morgan, who had just come in.
"I saw Mr Wodehouse's death in the 'Times,'" said Mr Proctor, "and I thought the poor young ladies might feel—at least they might think it a respect—or, at all events, it would be a satisfaction to one's self," said the late Rector, who had got into a mire of explanation. "Though he was far from being a young man, yet having a young daughter like Miss Lucy—"
"Poor Lucy!" said Mr Morgan. "I hope that wretched fellow, young Wentworth"—and here the Rector came to a dead stop, and felt that he had brought the subject most to be avoided head and shoulders into the conversation, as was natural to an embarrassed man. The consequence was that he got angry, as might have been expected. "My dear, you must not look at me as you do. I have just been hearing all the evidence. No unbiassed mind could possibly come to any other decision," said Mr Morgan, with exasperation. Now that he had committed himself, he thought it was much the best thing to go in for it wholly, without half measures, which was certainly the most straightforward way.
"What has happened to Wentworth?" said Mr Proctor. "He is a young man for whom I have a great regard. Though he is so much younger than I am, he taught me some lessons while I was in Carlingford which I shall never forget. If he is in any trouble that I can help him in, I shall be very glad to do it, both for his sake and for—" Mr Proctor slurred over the end of his sentence a little, and the others were occupied with their own difficulties, and did not take very much notice—for it was difficult to state fully the nature and extent of Mr Wentworth's enormities after such a declaration of friendship. "I met him on my way here," said the Fellow of All-Souls, "not looking quite as he used to do. I supposed it might be Mr Wodehouse's death, perhaps." All Mr Proctor's thoughts ran in that channel of Mr Wodehouse's death, which, after all, though sad enough, was not so great an event to the community in general as the late Rector seemed to suppose.
It was Mrs Morgan at length who took heart to explain to Mr Proctor the real state of affairs. "He has been a very good clergyman for five years," said Mrs Morgan; "he might behave foolishly, you know, about Wharfside, but then that was not his fault so much as the fault of the Rector's predecessors. I am sure I beg your pardon, Mr Proctor—I did not mean that you were to blame," said the Rector's wife; "but, notwithstanding all the work he has done, and the consistent life he has led, there is nobody in Carlingford who is not quite ready to believe that he has run away with Rosa Elsworthy—a common little girl without any education, or a single idea in her head. I suppose she is what you would call pretty," said the indignant woman. "Everybody is just as ready to believe that he is guilty as if he were a stranger or a bad character." Mrs Morgan stopped in an abrupt manner, because her quick eyes perceived a glance exchanged between the two gentlemen. Mr Proctor had seen a good deal of the world in his day, as he was fond of saying now and then to his intimate friends: and he had learned at the university and other places that a girl who is "what you would call pretty," counts for a great deal in the history of a young man, whether she has any ideas in her head or not. He did not, any more than the people of Carlingford, pronounce at once ona priorievidence that Mr Wentworth must be innocent. The Curate's "consistent life" did not go for much in the opinion of the middle-aged Fellow of All-Souls, any more than of the less dignified populace. He said, "Dear me, dear me!" in a most perplexed and distressed tone, while Mrs Morgan kept looking at him; and looked very much as if he were tempted to break forth into lamentations over human nature, as Mr Morgan himself had done.
"I wonder what the Miss Wodehouses think of it," he said at last. "One would do a great deal to keep them from hearing such a thing; but I wonder how they are feeling about it," said Mr Proctor—and clearly declined to discuss the matter with Mrs Morgan, who was counsel for the defence. When the Rector's wife went to her own room to dress for dinner, it is very true that she had a good cry over her cup of tea. She was not only disappointed, but exasperated, in that impatient feminine nature of hers. Perhaps if she had been less sensitive, she would have had less of that redness in her face which was so great a trouble to Mrs Morgan. These two slow middle-aged men, without any intuitions, who were coming lumbering after her through all kind of muddles of evidence and argument, exasperated the more rapid woman. To be sure, they understood Greek plays a great deal better than she did; but she was penetrated with the liveliest impatience of their dulness all the same. Mrs Morgan, however, like most people who are in advance of their age, felt her utter impotence against that blank wall of dull resistance. She could not make them see into the heart of things as she did. She had to wait until they had attacked the question in the orthodox way of siege, and made gradual entrance by dint of hard labour. All she could do to console herself was, to shed certain hot tears of indignation and annoyance over her tea, which, however, was excellent tea, and did her good. Perhaps it was to show her sense of superiority, and that she did not feel herself vanquished, that, after that, she put on her new dress, which was very much too nice to be wasted upon Mr Proctor. As for Mr Leeson, who came in as usual just in time for dinner, having heard of Mr Proctor's arrival, she treated him with a blandness which alarmed the Curate. "I quite expected you, for we have the All-Souls pudding to-day," said the Rector's wife, and she smiled a smile which would have struck awe into the soul of any curate that ever was known in Carlingford.
Itwas the afternoon of the same day on which Mr Proctor arrived in Carlingford that Mr Wentworth received the little note from Miss Wodehouse which was so great a consolation to the Perpetual Curate. By that time he had begun to experience humiliations more hard to bear than anything he had yet known. He had received constrained greetings from several of his most cordial friends; his people in the district, all but Tom Burrows, looked askance upon him; and Dr Marjoribanks, who had never taken kindly to the young Anglican, had met him with satirical remarks in his dry Scotch fashion, which were intolerable to the Curate. In these circumstances, it was balm to his soul to have his sympathy once more appealed to, and by those who were nearest to his heart. The next day was that appointed for Mr Wodehouse's funeral, to which Mr Wentworth had been looking forward with a little excitement—wondering, with indignant misery, whether the covert insults he was getting used to would be repeated even over his old friend's grave. It was while this was in his mind that he received Miss Wodehouse's little note. It was very hurriedly written, on the terrible black-edged paper which, to such a simple soul as Miss Wodehouse, it was a kind of comfort to use in the moment of calamity. "Dear Mr Wentworth," it said, "I am in great difficulty, and don't know what to do: come, I beg of you, and tell me what is best. My dear Lucy insists upon going to-morrow, and I can't cross her when her heart is breaking, and I don't know what to do. Please to come, if it were only for a moment. Dear, dear papa, and all of us, have always had such confidence in you!" Mr Wentworth was seated, very disconsolate, in his study when this appeal came to him: he was rather sick of the world and most things in it; a sense of wrong eclipsed the sunshine for the moment, and obscured the skies; but it was comforting to be appealed to—to have his assistance and his protection sought once more. He took his hat immediately and went up the sunny road, on which there was scarcely a passenger visible, to the closed-up house, which stood so gloomy and irresponsive in the sunshine. Mr Wodehouse had not been a man likely to attract any profound love in his lifetime, or sense of loss when he was gone; but yet it was possible to think, with the kindly, half-conscious delusion of nature, that hadhebeen living, he would have known better; and the Curate went into the darkened drawing-room, where all the shutters were closed, except those of the little window in the corner, where Lucy's work-table stood, and where a little muffled sunshine stole in through the blind. Everything was in terribly good order in the room. The two sisters had been living in their own apartments, taking their forlorn meals in the little parlour which communicated with their sleeping chambers, during this week of darkness; and nobody had come into the drawing-room except the stealthy housemaid, who contemplated herself and her new mourning for an hour at a stretch in the great mirror without any interruption, while she made "tidy" the furniture which nobody now disturbed. Into this sombre apartment Miss Wodehouse came gliding, like a gentle ghost, in her black gown. She too, like John and the housemaid and everybody about, walked and talked under her breath. There was now no man in the house entitled to disturb those proprieties with which a female household naturally hedges round all the great incidents of life; and the affairs of the family were all carried on in a whisper, in accordance with the solemnity of the occasion—a circumstance which had naturally called the ghost of a smile to the Curate's countenance as he followed John up-stairs. Miss Wodehouse herself, though she was pale, and spent half her time, poor soul! in weeping, and had, besides, living encumbrances to trouble her helpless path, did not look amiss in her black gown. She came in gliding without any noise, but with a little expectation in her gentle countenance. She was one of the people whom experience never makes any wiser; and she could not help hoping to be delivered from her troubles this time, as so often before, as soon as she should have transferred them to somebody else's shoulders, and taken "advice."
"Lucy has made up her mind that we are to go to-morrow," said Miss Wodehouse, drying her tears. "It was not the custom in my young days, Mr Wentworth, and I am sure I don't know what to say; but I can't bear to cross her, now that she has nobody but me. She was always the best child in the world," said the poor lady—"far more comfort to poor dear papa than I ever could be; but to hear her talk you would think that she had never done anything. And oh, Mr Wentworth, if that was all I should not mind; but we have always kept things a secret from her; and now I have had a letter, and I don't know what it is possible to do."
"A letter from your brother?" asked Mr Wentworth, eagerly.
"From Tom," said the elder sister; "poor, poor Tom! I am sure papa forgave him at the last, though he did not say anything. Oh, Mr Wentworth, he was such a nice boy once; and if Lucy only knew, and I could summon up the courage to tell her, and he would change his ways, as he promised—don't think me fickle or changeable, or look as if I didn't know my own mind," cried poor Miss Wodehouse, with a fresh flow of tears; "but oh, Mr Wentworth, if he only would change his ways, as he promised, think what a comfort it would be to us to have him at home!"
"Yes," said the Curate, with a little bitterness. Here was another instance of the impunities of wickedness. "I think it very likely indeed that you will have him at home," said Mr Wentworth—"almost certain; the wonder is that he went away. Will you tell me where he dates his letter from? I have a curiosity to know."
"You are angry," said the anxious sister. "Oh, Mr Wentworth, I know he does not deserve anything else, but you have always been so kind. I put his letter in my pocket to show you—at least, I am sure I intended to put it in my pocket. We have scarcely been in this room since—since—" and here Miss Wodehouse broke down, and had to take a little time to recover. "I will go and get the letter," she said, as at last she regained her voice, and hurried away through the partial darkness with her noiseless step, and the long black garments which swept noiselessly over the carpet. Mr Wentworth for his part went to the one window which was only veiled by a blind, and comforted himself a little in the sunshine. The death atmosphere weighed upon the young man and took away his courage. If he was only wanted to pave the way for the reception of the rascally brother for whose sins he felt convinced he was himself suffering, the consolation of being appealed to would be sensibly lessened, and it was hard to have no other way of clearing himself than by criminating Lucy's brother, and bringing dishonour upon her name. While he waited for Miss Wodehouse's return, he stood by Lucy's table, with very little of the feeling which had once prompted him to fold his arms so caressingly with an impulse of tenderness upon the chair which stood beside it. He was so much absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not hear at first the sound of a hesitating hand upon the door, which at length, when repeated, went to the Curate's heart. He turned round rapidly, and saw Lucy standing on the threshold in her profound mourning. She was very pale, and her blue eyes looked large and full beyond their natural appearance, dilated with tears and watching; and when they met those of Mr Wentworth, they filled full like flower-cups with dew; but besides this Lucy made no demonstration of her grief. After that momentary hesitation at the door, she came in and gave the Curate her hand. Perhaps it was a kind of defiance, perhaps a natural yearning, which drew her out of her chamber when she heard of his presence; both sentiments sprang out of the same feeling; and the Curate, when he looked at her, bethought himself of the only moment when he had been able to imagine that Lucy loved him; that moment by her father's bedside, of which the impression had been dulled since then by a crowd of events, when she looked with such reproach and disappointment and indignation into his face.
"I heard you were here," said Lucy, "and I thought you might think it strange not to see us both." And then she paused, perhaps finding it less easy than she thought to explain why she had come. "We ought to thank you, Mr Wentworth, for your kindness, though I—"
"You were angry with me," said the Curate. "I know you thought me heartless; but a man must bear to be misconceived when he has duty to do," the young clergyman added, with a swelling heart. Lucy did not know the fuller significance of his words; and there was a loftiness in them which partly affronted her, and set all her sensitive woman-pride in arms against him.
"I beg your pardon," she said, faltering, and then the two stood beside each other in silence, with a sense of estrangement. As for Lucy, all the story about Rosa Elsworthy, of which she had not yet heard the last chapter, rushed back upon her mind. Was it to see little Rosa's lover that she had come out of the darkness of her room, with a natural longing for sympathy which it was impossible to restrain? The tenderness of the instinctive feeling which had moved her, went back upon her heart in bitterness. That he must have divined why she had come, and scorned her for it, was the mildest supposition in Lucy's mind. She could almost have imagined that he had come on purpose to elicit this vain exhibition of regard, and triumph over it; all this, too, when she was in such great trouble and sorrow, and wanted a little compassion, a little kindness, so much. This was the state of mind to which Lucy had come, in five minutes after she entered the room, when Miss Wodehouse came back with the letter. The elder sister was almost as much astonished at Lucy's presence as if she had been the dead inhabitant who kept such state in the darkened house. She was so startled that she went back a step or two when she perceived her, and hastily put the letter in her pocket, and exclaimed her sister's name in a tone most unlike Miss Wodehouse's natural voice.
"I came down-stairs because—I mean they told me Mr Wentworth was here," said Lucy, who had never felt so weak and so miserable in her life, "and I wanted to thank him for all his kindness." It was here for the first time that Lucy broke down. Her sorrow was so great, her longing for a word of kindness had been so natural, and her shame and self-condemnation at the very thought that she was able to think of anything but her father, were so bitter, that the poor girl's forces, weakened by watching, were not able to withstand them. She sank into the chair that stood nearest, and covered her face with her hands, and cried as people cry only at twenty. And as for Mr Wentworth, he had no right to take her in his arms and comfort her, nor to throw himself at her feet and entreat her to take courage. All he could do was to stand half a yard, yet a whole world, apart looking at her, his heart beating with all the remorseful half-angry tenderness of love. Since it was not his to console her, he was almost impatient of her tears.
"Dear, I have been telling Mr Wentworth about to-morrow," said Miss Wodehouse, weeping too, as was natural, "and he thinks—he thinks—oh, my darling! and so do I—that it will be too much for you. When I was young it never was the custom; and oh, Lucy, remember that ladies are not to be expected to have such command over their feelings," said poor Miss Wodehouse, dropping on her knees by Lucy's chair. Mr Wentworth stood looking on in a kind of despair. He had nothing to say, and no right to say anything; even his presence was a kind of intrusion. But to be referred to thus as an authority against Lucy's wishes, vexed him in the most unreasonable way.
"Mr Wentworth does not know me," said Lucy, under her breath, wiping away her tears with a trembling, indignant hand. "If we had had a brother, it might have been different; but there must be somebody there that loves him," said the poor girl, with a sob, getting up hastily from her chair. She could not bear to stay any longer in the room, which she had entered with a vague sense of possible consolation. As for the Curate, he made haste to open the door for her, feeling the restraint of his position almost intolerable. "Ishall be there," he said, stopping at the door to look into the fair, pallid face which Lucy would scarcely raise to listen. "Could you not trustme?" It looked like giving him a pledge of something sacred and precious to put her hand into his, which was held out for it so eagerly. But Lucy could not resist the softening of nature; and not even Miss Wodehouse, looking anxiously after them, heard what further words they were that Mr Wentworth said in her ear. "I am for your service, however and wherever you want me," said the Curate, with a young man's absolutism. Heaven knows he had enough to do with his own troubles; but he remembered no obstacle which could prevent him from dedicating all his time and life to her as he spoke. When Lucy reached her own room, she threw herself upon the sofa, and wept like a woman inconsolable; but it was somehow because this consolation, subtle and secret, had stolen into her heart that her tears flowed so freely. And Mr Wentworth returned to her sister relieved, he could not have told why. At all events, come what might, the two had drawn together again in their mutual need.
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, how can I cross her?" said Miss Wodehouse, wringing her hands. "If we had a brother—did you hear what she said? Here is his letter, and I hope you will tell me candidly what you think. If we could trust him—if we could but trust him! I daresay you think me very changeable and foolish; but now we are alone," said the poor lady, "think what a comfort it would be if he only would change his ways as he promised! Lucy is a great deal more use than I am, and understands things; but still we are only two women," said the elder sister. "If you think we could put any dependence upon him, Mr Wentworth, I would never hesitate. He might live with us, and have his little allowance." Miss Wodehouse paused, and raised her anxious face to the Curate, pondering the particulars of the liberality she intended. "He is not a boy," she went on. "I daresay now he must feel the want of the little comforts he once was used to; and though he is not like what he used to be, neither in his looks nor his manners, people would be kind to him for our sakes. Oh, Mr Wentworth, don't you think we might trust him?" said the anxious woman, looking in the Curate's face.
All this time Mr Wentworth, with an impatience of her simplicity which it was difficult to restrain, was reading the letter, in which he perceived a very different intention from any divined by Miss Wodehouse. The billet was disreputable enough, written in pencil, and without any date.
"Mary,— I mean to come to my father's funeral," wrote Mr Wodehouse's disowned son. "Things are changed now, as I said they would be. I and a friend of mine have set everything straight with Waters, and I mean to come in my own name, and take the place I have a right to. How it is to be after this depends on how you behave; but things are changed between you and me, as I told you they would be; and I expect you won't do anything to make 'em worse by doing or saying what's unpleasant. I add no more, because I hope you'll have sense to see what I mean, and to act accordingly.—Your brother,
"Thomas Wodehouse."
"You see he thinks I will reproach him," said Miss Wodehouse, anxiously; perhaps it had just glanced across her own mind that something more important still might have dictated language so decided. "He has a great deal more feeling than you would suppose, poor fellow! It is very touching in him to say, 'the place he has a right to'—don't you think so, Mr Wentworth? Poor Tom! if we could but trust him, and he would change his ways as he promised! Oh, Mr Wentworth, don't you think I might speak of it to him to-morrow? If we could—bury—everything—in dear papa's grave," cried the poor lady, once more breaking down. Mr Wentworth took no notice of Miss Wodehouse's tears. They moved him with sentiments entirely different from those with which he regarded Lucy's. He read the note over again without any attempt to console her, till she had struggled back into composure; but even then there was nothing sympathetic in the Curate's voice.
"And I think you told me you did not know anything about the will?" he said, with some abruptness, making no account whatever of the suggestion she had made.
"No," said Miss Wodehouse; "but my dear father was a business man, Mr Wentworth, and I feel quite sure—quite—"
"Yes," said the Perpetual Curate; "nor of the nature of his property, perhaps?" added the worldly-minded young man whom poor Miss Wodehouse had chosen for her adviser. It was more than the gentle woman could bear.
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, you know I am not one to understand," cried the poor lady. "You ask me questions, but you never tell me what you think I should do. If it were only for myself, I would not mind, but I have to act for Lucy," said the elder sister, suddenly sitting upright and drying her tears. "Papa, I am sure, did what was best for us," she said, with a little gentle dignity, which brought the Curate back to his senses; "but oh, Mr Wentworth, look at the letter, and tell me, for my sister's sake, what am I to do?"
The Curate went to the window, from which the sunshine was stealing away, to consider the subject; but he did not seem to derive much additional wisdom from that sacred spot, where Lucy's work-table stood idle. "We must wait and see," he said to himself. When he came back to Miss Wodehouse, and saw the question still in her eyes, it only brought back his impatience. "My dear Miss Wodehouse, instead of speculating about what is to happen, it would be much better to prepare your sister for the discovery she must make to-morrow," said Mr Wentworth; "I cannot give any other advice, for my part. I think it is a great pity that you have kept it concealed so long. I beg your pardon for speaking so abruptly, but I am afraid you don't know all the trouble that is before you. We are all in a great deal of trouble," said the Perpetual Curate, with a little unconscious solemnity. "I can't say I see my way through it; but you ought to prepare her—to see—her brother." He said the words with a degree of repugnance which he could not conceal, and which wounded his companion's tender heart.
"He was so different when he was young," said Miss Wodehouse, with a suppressed sob—"he was a favourite everywhere. You would not have looked so if you had known him then. Oh, Mr Wentworth, promise me that you will not turn your back upon him if he comes home, after all your kindness. I will tell Lucy how much you have done for him," said Miss Wodehouse. She was only half-conscious of her own gentle artifice. She took the Curate's hand in both her own before he left her, and said it was such a comfort to have his advice to rely upon; and she believed what she said, though Mr Wentworth himself knew better. The poor lady sat down in Lucy's chair, and had a cry at her ease after he went away. She was to tell Lucy—but how? and she sat pondering this hard question till all the light had faded out of the room, and the little window which was not shuttered dispersed only a grey twilight through the empty place. The lamp, meantime, had been lighted in the little parlour where Lucy sat, very sad, in her black dress, with 'In Memoriam' on the table by her, carrying on a similar strain in her heart. She was thinking of the past, so many broken scenes of which kept flashing up before her, all bright with indulgent love and tenderness—and she was thinking of the next day, when she was to see all that remained of her good father laid in his grave. He was not very wise nor remarkable among men, but he had been the tenderest father to the child of his old age; and in her heart she was praying for him still, pausing now and then to think whether it was right. The tears were heavy in her young eyes, but they were natural tears, and Lucy had no more thought that there was in the world anything sadder than sorrow, or that any complications lay in her individual lot, than the merest child in Prickett's Lane. She thought of going back to the district, all robed and invested in the sanctity of her grief—she thought it was to last for ever, as one has the privilege of thinking when one is young; and it was to this young saint, tender towards all the world, ready to pity everybody, and to save a whole race, if that had been possible, that Miss Wodehouse went in, heavy and burdened, with her tale of miserable vice, unkindness, estrangement. How was it possible to begin? Instead of beginning, poor Miss Wodehouse, overpowered by her anxieties and responsibilities, was taken ill and fainted, and had to be carried to bed. Lucy would not let her talk when she came to herself; and so the only moment of possible preparation passed away, and the event itself, which one of them knew nothing of, and the other did not understand, came in its own person, without anyavant-couriers, to open Lucy's eyes once for all.
Mr Wentworthhad 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.
Whenthe door closed upon Lucy and her sister, Mr Wentworth stood by himself, facing the other people assembled. The majority of them were more surprised, more shocked, than he was; but they were huddled together in their wonder at the opposite end of the table, and had somehow a confused, half-conscious air of being on the other side.
"It's a very extraordinary revelation that has just been made to us," said Dr Marjoribanks. "I am throwing no doubt upon it, for my part; but my conviction was, that Tom Wodehouse died in the West Indies. He was just the kind of man to die in the West Indies. If it's you," said the Doctor, with a growl of natural indignation, "you have the constitution of an elephant. You should have been dead ten years ago, at the very least; and it appears to me there would be some difficulty in proving identity, if anybody would take up that view of the question." As he spoke, Dr Marjoribanks walked round the new-comer, looking at him with medical criticism. The Doctor's eyes shot out fiery hazel gleams as he contemplated the heavy figure. "More appearance than reality," he muttered to himself, with a kind of grim satisfaction, poising a forefinger in air, as if to prove the unwholesome flesh; and then he went round to the other elbow of the unexpected heir. "The thing is now, what you mean to do for them, to repair your father's neglect," he said, tapping peremptorily on Wodehouse's arm.
"There is something else to be said in the mean time," said Mr Wentworth. "I must know precisely how it is that a state of affairs so different from anything Mr Wodehouse could have intended has come about. The mere absence of a will does not seem to me to explain it. I should like to have Mr Brown's advice—for my own satisfaction, if nothing else."
"The parson has got nothing to do with it, that I can see," said Wodehouse, "unless he was looking for a legacy, or that sort of thing. As for the girls, I don't see what right I have to be troubled; they took deuced little trouble with me. Perhaps they'd have taken me in as a sort of footman without pay—you heard what they said, Waters? By Jove! I'll serve Miss Mary out for that," said the vagabond. Then he paused a little, and, looking round him, moderated his tone. "I've been badly used all my life," said the prodigal son. "They would never give me a hearing. They say I did heaps of things I never dreamt of. Mary aint above thinking of her own interest—"
Here Mr Proctor came forward from the middle of the room where he had been standing in a perplexed manner since the ladies went away. "Hold—hold your tongue, sir!" said the late Rector; "haven't you done enough injury already—" When he had said so much, he stopped as abruptly as he had begun, and seemed to recollect all at once that he had no title to interfere.
"By Jove!" said Wodehouse, "you don't seem to think I know what belongs to me, or who belongs to me. Holdyourtongue, Waters; I can speak for myself. I've been long enough snubbed by everybody that had a mind. I don't mean to put up with this sort of thing any longer. Any man who pleases can consult John Brown. I recollect John Brown as well as anybody in Carlingford. It don't matter to me what he says, or what anybody says. The girls are a parcel of girls, and I am my father's son, as it happens. I should have thought the parson had enough on his hands for one while," said the new heir, in the insolence of triumph. "He tried patronising me, but that wouldn't answer. Why, there's his brother, Jack Wentworth, his elder brother, come down here purposely to manage matters for me. He's the eldest son, by Jove! and one of the greatest swells going. He has come down here on purpose to do the friendly thing by me. We're great friends, by Jove! Jack Wentworth and I; and yet here's a beggarly younger brother, that hasn't a penny—"
"Wodehouse," said Mr Wentworth, with some contempt, "sit down and be quiet. You and I have some things to talk of which had better not be discussed in public. Leave Jack Wentworth's name alone, if you are wise, and don't imagine that I am going to bear your punishment. Be silent, sir!" cried the Curate, sternly; "do you suppose I ask any explanations from you? Mr Waters, I want to hear how this has come about? When I saw you in this man's interest some time ago, you were not so friendly to him. Tell me how it happens that he is now your client, and that you set him forth as the heir!"
"By Jove, the parson has nothing to do with it! Let him find it out," muttered Wodehouse in his beard; but the words were only half audible, and the vagabond's shabby soul was cowed in spite of himself. He gave the lawyer a furtive thrust in the arm as he spoke, and looked at him a little anxiously; for the position of a man standing lawfully on his natural rights was new to Wodehouse; and all his certainty of the facts did not save him from a sensation of habit which suggested that close examination was alarming, and that something might still be found out. As for Mr Waters, he looked with placid contempt at the man, who was not respectable, and still had the instincts of a vagabond in his heart.
"I am perfectly ready to explain," said the irreproachable solicitor, who was quite secure in his position. "The tone of the request, however, might be modified a little; and as I don't, any more than Mr Wodehouse, see exactly what right Mr Wentworth has to demand—"
"I ask an explanation, not on my own behalf, but for the Miss Wodehouses, who have made me their deputy," said the Curate, "for their satisfaction, and that I may consult Mr Brown. You seem to forget that allhegains they lose; which surely justifies their representative in asking how did it come about?"
It was at this point that all the other gentlemen present pressed closer, and evinced an intention to take part. Dr Marjoribanks was the first to speak. He took a pinch of snuff, and while he consumed it looked from under his grizzled sandy eyebrows with a perplexing mixture of doubt and respect at the Perpetual Curate. He was a man of some discrimination in his way, and the young man's lofty looks impressed him a little in spite of himself.
"Not to interrupt the explanation," said Dr Marjoribanks, "which we'll all be glad to hear—but Mr Wentworth's a young man, not possessed, so far as I am aware, of any particular right;—except that he has been very generous and prompt in offering his services," said the Doctor, moved to the admission by a fiery glance from the Curate's eye, which somehow did not look like the eye of a guilty man. "I was thinking, an old man, and an old friend, like myself, might maybe be a better guardian for the ladies' interests—"
Mr Proctor, who had been listening very anxiously, was seized with a cough at this moment, which drowned out the Doctor's words. It was a preparatory cough, and out of it the late Rector rushed into speech. "I have come from—from Oxford to be of use," said the new champion. "My time is entirely at my own—at Miss Wodehouse's—at the Miss Wodehouses' disposal. I am most desirous to be of use," said Mr Proctor, anxiously. And he advanced close to the table to prefer his claim.
"Such a discussion seems quite unnecessary," said Mr Wentworth, with some haughtiness. "I shall certainly do in the mean time what has been intrusted to me. At present we are simply losing time."
"But—" said the Rector. The word was not of importance nor uttered with much resolution, but it arrested Mr Wentworth more surely than the shout of a multitude. He turned sharp round upon his adversary, and said "Well?" with an air of exasperation; while Wodehouse, who had been lounging about the room in a discomfited condition, drew near to listen.
"I am comparatively a stranger to the Miss Wodehouses," said Mr Morgan; "still I am their clergyman; and I think with Dr Marjoribanks, that a young man like Mr Wentworth, especially a man so seriously compromised—"
"Oh, stop! I do think you are all a great deal too hard upon Mr Wentworth," said the lawyer, with a laugh of toleration, which Wodehouse echoed behind him with a sense of temerity that made his laughter all the louder. He was frightened, but he was glad to make himself offensive, according to his nature. Mr Wentworth stood alone, for his part, and had to put up with the laugh as he best could.
"If any one here wishes to injure me with the Miss Wodehouses, an opportunity may easily be found," said the Curate, with as much composure as he could muster; "and I am ready to relinquish my charge when they call on me to do so. In the mean time, this is not the place to investigate my conduct. Sit down, sir, and let us be free of your interference for this moment at least," he said, fiercely, turning to the new heir. "I warn you again, you have nothing but justice to expect at my hands. Mr Waters, we wait your explanations." He was the tallest man in the room, which perhaps had something to do with it; the youngest, best born, and best endowed. That he would have carried the day triumphantly in the opinion of any popular audience, there could be no kind of doubt. Even in this middle-aged unimpressionable assembly, his indignant self-control had a certain influence. When he drew a chair towards the table and seated himself, the others sat down unawares, and the lawyer began his story without any further interruption. The explanation of all was, that Mr Wodehouse, like so many men, had an ambition to end his days as a country gentleman. He had set his heart for years on an estate in the neighbourhood of Carlingford, and had just completed his long-contemplated purchase at the moment of his last seizure. Nobody knew, except the Curate and the lawyer, what the cause of that seizure was. They exchanged looks without being aware of it, and Wodehouse, still more deeply conscious, uttered, poor wretch! a kind of gasp, which sounded like a laugh to the other horrified spectators. After all, it was his crime which had brought him his good fortune, for there had been an early will relating to property which existed no longer—property which had been altogether absorbed in the newly-acquired estate. "I have no doubt my late excellent partner would have made a settlement had the time been permitted him," said Mr Waters. "I have not the slightest doubt as to his intentions; but the end was very unexpected at the last. I suppose death always is unexpected when it comes," said the lawyer, with a little solemnity, recollecting that three of his auditors were clergymen. "The result is painful in many respects; but law is law, and such accidents cannot be entirely avoided. With the exception of a few trifling personal matters, and the furniture, and a little money at the bank, there is nothing but freehold property, and of course the son takes that. I can have no possible objection to your consulting Mr Brown; but Mr Brown can give you no further information." If there had been any little hope of possible redress lingering in the mind of the perplexed assembly, this brought it to a conclusion. The heir, who had been keeping behind with an impulse of natural shame, came back to the table when his rights were so clearly established. He did not know how to behave himself with a good grace, but he was disposed to be conciliatory, as far as he could, especially as it began to be disagreeably apparent that the possession of his father's property might not make any particular difference in the world's opinion of himself.