Маргарет Олифант
The Perpetual Curate
CHAPTER XXI
When the green door was opened, Mr Wentworth saw at a glance that there was agitation and trouble in the house. Lights were twinkling irregularly in the windows here and there, but the family apartment, the cheerful drawing-room, which generally threw its steady, cheerful blaze over the dark garden, shone but faintly with half-extinguished lights and undrawn curtains. It was evident at a glance that the room was deserted, and its usual occupants engaged elsewhere. "Master's very bad, sir," said the servant who opened the door; "the young ladies is both with him, and a hired nurse come in besides. The doctor don't seem to have no great hopes, but it will be a comfort to know as you have come back. Miss Wodehouse wanted you very bad an hour or two ago, for they thought as master was reviving, and could understand. I'll go and let them know you are here."
"Don't disturb them, unless I can be of use," said Mr Wentworth. The look of the house, and the atmosphere of distress and anxiety about it, chilled him suddenly. His visions and hopes seemed guilty and selfish as he went slowly up those familiar steps and into the house, over which the shadow of death seemed already lying. He went by himself into the forsaken drawing-room, where two neglected candles were burning feebly in a corner, and the wistful sky looking in as if to ask why the domestic temple was thus left open and uncared for. After the first moment he went hastily to the windows, and drew down the blinds in a kind of tender impatience. He could not bear that anything in the world, even her father's danger, should discompose the sweet, good order of the place where Lucy's image dwelt. There was a chair and her basket of work, and on the little table a book marked with pencil-marks, such as youthful readers love to make; and by degrees that breath of Lucy lingering in the silent room overcame its dreariness, and the painful sense of desertion which had struck him at first. He hovered about that corner where her usual place was, feeling in his heart that Lucy in trouble was dearer, if possible, than Lucy in happiness, and hung over her chair, with a mixture of reverence and tenderness and yearning, which could never be expressed in words. It was the divinest phase of love which was in his mind at the moment; for he was not thinking of himself, but of her, and of how he could succour and comfort her, and interpose his own true heart and life between her and all trouble. It was at this moment that Lucy herself entered the room; she came in softly, and surprised him in the overflowing of his heart. She held out her hand to him as usual, and smiled, perhaps less brightly, but that of course arose from the circumstances of the house; and her voice was very measured and steady when she spoke, less variable than of old. What was it she said? Mr Wentworth unconsciously left the neighbourhood of that chair over which he had been bending, which, to tell the truth, he had leaned his head upon, lover-like, and perhaps even kissed for her sake, five minutes before, and grew red and grew pale with a strange revulsion and tumult of feeling. He could not tell what the difference was, or what it meant. He only felt in an instant, with a sense of the change that chilled him to the heart, as if somehow a wall of ice had risen between them. He could see her through the transparent veil, and hear her speak, and perceive the smile which cast no warmth of reflection on him; but in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, everything in heaven and earth was changed. Lucy herself, to her own consciousness, trembled and faltered, and felt as if her voice and her looks must betray an amount of emotion which she would have died rather than show; but then Lucy had rehearsed this scene before, and knew all she intended by it; whereas upon the Curate, in his little flush and overflow of tenderness, it fell like a sudden earthquake, rending his fair edifice of happiness asunder, and casting him out into unexpected darkness. Sudden confusion, mortification, even a sense of injury and bitterness, came swelling over his heart as he set a chair for her as far away as possible from the corner in which he had been indulging such vain and unwarrantable dreams.
"It happened yesterday," said Lucy; "we have not been quite able to make out what was the cause; at least I have not been able to find it out. The clerks at the office say it was something about – but that does not matter," she went on, with her sweet politeness: "you don't care for the details. I sometimes fancy Mary knows more than she tells me, and I think you are in her confidence, Mr Wentworth. But I am not going to ask you any questions. The doctors say he is not suffering so much as he seems to be. It is terrible to see him lie there not knowing any of us," said Lucy, with a tremble in her voice.
"But you thought him better some time ago?" said the Curate, whose words choked him, and who could not endure to speak.
"Yes, about six o'clock," said Lucy, "he tried to speak, and put Mary in a great fright, I cannot tell why. Would you be good enough, Mr Wentworth," she went on hastily, with a strange mixture of earnestness and coldness, "if you know of anything she is keeping secret, to bid her tell me? I am able to bear anything there may be to bear – surely as well as she is, who has had no trouble," said Lucy, softly; and for a moment she wavered in her fixed composure, and the wall of ice moved as if it might fall.
"Nor you?" said the Curate, bending anxiously forward to look into her eyes. He was inexpressibly moved and agitated by the inference, which perhaps no listener less intensely concerned would have drawn from what Lucy said. He could not bear that she should have any trouble which he might not do something to relieve her of.
"Oh, no, nor I," said Lucy, quickly, and in that moment the softening of tone disappeared entirely. "Mary will be pleased to see you, Mr Wentworth. I will go and relieve her presently. Papa is asleep just now, and I was down-stairs giving some directions when you came in. I wanted to ask you to look after that poor woman at No. 10. She still keeps living on, and I have not been able to see her today. She misses me when I don't go," said Lucy, with a very little unconscious sigh. "Would you see her, please, to-morrow, if you have time?"
"Yes, certainly," said the Curate; and then there was a pause. "Is there nothing but this that you will let me do for you?" he asked, trusting to his looks to show the heart, which at this moment he was so much tempted to disclose to her, but dared not. And even in all her trouble Lucy was too much of a woman to neglect an opportunity so tempting.
"Thank you," she said. "Yes, there are those poor little Bertrams I was to have seen today – if you would be so very good as to send some one to them." Lucy lifted her eyes only as she ended this little speech. She had meant it cruelly, to be sure, and the arrow had gone home; but when she met the look that was fixed on her after her little shaft was fired, Lucy's resolution faltered. The tears came rushing to her eyes so hot and rapid that she could not restrain them. Some trouble of her own gave poignancy to that outbreak of filial grief. "Papa is so very ill!" she said, with a sob, as a scalding drop fell upon her hand; and then got up suddenly, afraid of the consequences. But the Curate, mortified, wounded, and disheartened as he was, had no comprehension either of the bitterness or the relenting that was in Lucy's thoughts. Rosa Elsworthy did not so much as occur to him in all his confused wonderings. He went after her to the door, too much perplexed and distressed to be indignant, as his first impulse was. She turned half round, with a tremulous little inclination of her head, which was all the good-night she could venture on. But the young man was too much disturbed to permit this.
"You will give me your hand, surely," he said, taking it, and holding it fast – a hand so different from that weak woman's hand that clung to Gerald without any force to hold him, in Wentworth Rectory. Those reluctant fingers, so firm and so soft, which scorned any struggle to withdraw themselves, but remained passive in his with a more effectual protest still against his grasp, wrung the very heart of the Perpetual Curate. He let them go with a sigh of vexation and disappointment. "Since that is all I can do, I will do it," he said – "that or anything else." She had left him almost before the words were said; and it was in a very disconsolate mood that he turned back into the deserted drawing-room. To tell the truth, he forgot everything else for the moment, asking himself what it could mean; and walked about stumbling over the chairs, feeling all his little edifice of personal consolation falling to the winds, and not caring much though everything else should follow. He was in this state of mind when Miss Wodehouse came to him, moving with noiseless steps, as everybody did in the stricken house.
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, I am so glad you have come," said that mild woman, holding out both her hands to him. She was too much agitated to say anything more. She was not equal to the emergency, or any emergency, but sank down on a chair, and relieved herself by tears, while the Curate stood anxiously by, waiting for what she had to say to him. "My father is very ill," she said, like Lucy, through her crying; "I don't know what good anybody can do; but thank God you've come home – now I shall feel I have somebody to apply to, whatever happens," said poor Miss Wodehouse, drying the eyes that were suffused again the next moment. Her helpless distress did not overwhelm the spectator, like Lucy's restrained trouble, but that was natural enough.
"Tell me about it," said Mr Wentworth; "the cause – can I guess at the cause? it is something about your – "
"Oh hush! don't say his name," cried Miss Wodehouse. "Yes, yes, what else could it be? Oh, Mr Wentworth, will you close the door, please, and see that there's no one about. I dare not speak to you till I am sure there's no one listening; not that I suspect anybody of listening," said the distressed woman; "but one never knows. I am afraid it is all my fault," she continued, getting up suddenly to see that the windows were closed. "I ought to have sent him away, instead of putting my trouble upon you; and now he is in greater danger than ever. Oh, Mr Wentworth, I meant it for the best; and now, unless you can help us, I don't know what I am to do."
"I cannot help you unless you tell me what is wrong," said the Curate, making her sit down, and drawing a chair close to her. He took her hand, by way of compelling her attention – a fair, soft hand, too, in its restless, anxious way. He held it in a brotherly grasp, trying to restore her to coherence, and induce her to speak.
"I don't know enough about business to tell you," she said. "He was in danger when I threw him upon your charity; and oh, Mr Wentworth, thank you, thank you a thousand times, for taking him in like a brother. If Lucy only knew! But I don't feel as if I dared to tell her – and yet I sometimes think I ought, for your – I mean for all our sakes. Yes, I will try to explain it if I can; but I can't – indeed I don't understand," cried the poor lady, in despair. "It is something about a bill – it was something about a bill before; and I thought I could soften papa, and persuade him to be merciful; but it has all turned to greater wretchedness and misery. The first one was paid, you know, and I thought papa might relent; – but – don't cast us off, Mr Wentworth – don't go and denounce him; you might, but you will not. It would be justice, I acknowledge," cried the weeping woman; "but there is something higher than justice even in this world. You are younger than I am, and so is Lucy; but you are better than me, you young people, and you must be more merciful too. I have seen you going among the poor people and among the sick, and I could not have done it; and you won't forsake me – oh, Mr Wentworth, you won't forsake me, when you know that my trouble is greater than I can bear!"
"I will not forsake you," said the Curate; "but tell me what it is. I have been summoned to Carlingford by my brother, and I am bewildered and disturbed beyond what I can tell you – "
"By your brother?" said Miss Wodehouse, with her unfailing instinct of interest in other people. "I hope there is no trouble in your own family, Mr Wentworth. One gets so selfish when one is in great distress. I hope he is not ill. It sounds as if there was comfort in the very name of a brother," said the gentle woman, drying her tears, "and I hope it is so with you; but it isn't always so. I hope you will find he is better when you get home. I am very, very sorry to hear that you are in trouble too."
Mr Wentworth got up from his chair with a sigh of impatience. "Will nobody tell me what is the matter?" he said. "Mr Wodehouse is ill, and there is some mysterious cause for it; and you are miserable, and there is a cause for that too; and I am to do something to set things right without knowing what is wrong. Will you not tell me? What is it? Has your – "
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, don't say anybody's name – don't speak so loud. There may be a servant in the staircase or something," cried Miss Wodehouse. "I hear somebody coming now." She got up to listen, her face growing white with panic, and went a few steps towards the door, and then tottered into another chair, unable to command herself. A certain sick thrill of apprehension came over the Curate, too, as he hastened forward. He could not tell what he was afraid of, or whether it was only the accumulated agitation of the day that made him weak. Somebody was coming up the stairs, and towards the room, with a footstep more careless than those stealthy steps with which all the servants were stealing about the house. Whoever he was, he stopped at the door a moment, and then looked cautiously in. When he saw the figure of the Curate in the imperfect light, he withdrew his head again as if deliberating with himself, and then, with a sudden rush, came in, and shut the door after him. "Confound these servants, they're always prowling about the house," said the new-comer. He was an alarming apparition in his great beard and his shabbiness, and the fugitive look he had. "I couldn't help it," he broke forth, with a spontaneous burst of apology and self-defence. "I heard he was ill, and I couldn't keep quiet. How is he? You don't mean to say that's my fault. Molly, can't you speak to me? How could I tell I should find you and the parson alone here, and all safe? I might have been risking my – my – freedom – everything I care for; but when I heard he was ill, I couldn't stay quiet. Is he dying? – what's the matter? Molly, can't you speak?"
"Oh, Mr Wentworth, somebody will see him," cried Miss Wodehouse, wringing her hands. "Oh Tom, Tom, how could you do it? Suppose somebody was to come in – John or somebody. If you care for your own life, oh, go away, go away!"
"They can't touch my life," said the stranger, sullenly. "I daresay she doesn't know that. Nor the parson need not look superior – there are more people concerned than I; but if I've risked everything to hear, you may surely tell me how the old man is."
"If it was love that brought you," said poor Miss Wodehouse; "but oh, Tom, you know I can't believe that. He is very, very ill; and it is you that have done it," cried the mild woman, in a little gush of passion – "you whom he has forgiven and forgiven till his heart is sick. Go away, I tell you, go away from the house that you have shamed. Oh, Mr Wentworth, take him away," she cried, turning to the Curate with clasped hands – "tell him to hide – to fly – or he'll be taken: he will not be forgiven this time; and if my father – if my dear father dies – " But when she got so far her agitation interrupted her. She kept her eyes upon the door with a wild look of terror, and waved her helpless hands to warn the intruder away.
"If he dies, matters will be altered," said the stranger: "you and I might change places then, for that matter. I'm going away from Carlingford. I can't stay in such a wretched hole any longer. It's gout or something?" said the man, with a tone of nature breaking through his bravado – "it's not anything that has happened? Say so, and I'll never trouble you more."
"Oh, if Lucy were to see him!" said poor Miss Wodehouse. The words came unawares out of her heart without any thought; but the next thing of which she was conscious was that the Perpetual Curate had laid his hand on the stranger's arm, and was leading him reluctantly away. "I will tell you all you want to know," said Mr Wentworth, "but not here;" and with his hand upon the other's arm, moved him somehow with an irresistible command, half physical, half mental, to the door. Before Miss Wodehouse could say anything they were gone; before she could venture to draw that long sighing breath of relief, she heard the door below close, and the retreating footsteps in the garden. But the sound, thankful though she was, moved her to another burst of bitter tears. "To think I should have to tell a stranger to take him away," she sobbed, out of the anguish of her heart; and sat weeping over him with a relenting that wrung her tender spirit, without power to move till the servant came up with alarmed looks to ask if any one had come in in his absence. "Oh, no; it was only Mr Wentworth – and a – gentleman who came to fetch him," said Miss Wodehouse. And she got up, trembling as she was, and told John he had better shut up the house and go to bed. "For I hope papa will have a better night, and we must not waste our strength," she said, with a kind of woeful smile, which was a wonder to John. He said Miss Wodehouse was a tender-hearted one, to be sure, when he went down-stairs; but that was no very novel piece of information to anybody there.
Meantime the Curate went down Grange Lane with that strange lodger of Mrs Hadwin's, who had broken thus into Miss Wodehouse's solitude. They did not say much to each other as they went sullenly side by side down the silent road; for the stranger, whose feelings were not complicated by any very lively sense of gratitude, looked upon his companion as a kind of jailer, and had an unspeakable grudge against the man who exercised so calm an ascendancy over him; though to be sure it might have been difficult to resist the moral force of the Curate of St Roque's, who was three inches taller than himself, and had the unbroken vigour of youth and health to back him. As for Mr Wentworth, he went on without speaking, with a bitterness in his heart not to be expressed. His own personal stronghold of happiness and consolation had shattered in pieces in that evening's interview; and as he went to his own house he asked himself what he should find in it? This wretched man, with whose sins he had been hitherto but partially acquainted; and Jack, with whom the other had heaven knew what horrible connection. Should he find a den of thieves where he had left only high thoughts and lofty intentions? It was thus, after his three days' absence, that he returned home.
CHAPTER XXII
When Mr Wentworth entered Mrs Hadwin's garden in the dark, his first glance up at the house showed him that a certain change had passed on it also. The decorous little house had been turned inside out. The windows of his own sitting-room were open, the blind drawn up to the top, and in addition to his usual lamp some candles were flaring wildly in the draught. He could see into the room as he paused at the garden-door, and was able to distinguish that the table was still covered as for dinner, and to catch the purple gleam of the light in the claret-jug which occupied the place of honour; but nobody was visible in the room. That wildly-illuminated and open apartment stood in strange contrast with the rest of the house, where everything was dark, save in Mrs Hadwin's own chamber. The Curate proceeded on his way, after that moment's pause, with hasty and impatient steps. On the way up he encountered Sarah the housemaid, who stopped in the middle of the stairs to make a frightened little curtsy, and utter an alarmed "La!" of recognition and surprise. But Sarah turned round as soon as she had recovered herself, to say that her missis wanted very bad to see Mr Wentworth as soon as he came home; but she was gone up to bed now, and didn't he think it would be a pity to wake her up? The Curate gave her only a little nod of general acquiescence, as he hurried on; but felt, notwithstanding, that this prompt request, ready prepared for his arrival, was a tacit protest against his guests, and expression of disapproval. Mrs Hadwin was only his landlady, an old woman, and not a particularly wise one, but her disapproval vexed the Perpetual Curate. It was a kind of sign of the times – those times in which it appeared that everybody was ready to turn upon him and embarrass his path. He had forgotten all about his companion as he hurried into the familiar room which was so little like itself, but yet was somehow conscious with annoyance that the stranger followed him through its half-shut door. The scene within was one which was never effaced from Mr Wentworth's memory. There were several bottles upon the table, which the poor Curate knew by sight, and which had been collected in his little cellar more for the benefit of Wharfside than of himself. Removed out of the current of air which was playing freely through the apartment, was some one lying on a sofa, with candles burning on a table beside him. He was in a dressing-gown, with his shirt open at the throat, and his languid frame extended in perfect repose to catch the refreshment of the breeze. Clouds of languid smoke, which were too far out of the way to feel the draught between the windows, curled over him: he had a cigar in one hand, which he had just taken from his lips, and with which he was faintly waving off a big night-moth which had been attracted by the lights; and a French novel, unmistakable in its paper cover, had closed upon the other. Altogether a more languid figure never lay at rest in undisturbed possession of the most legitimate retirement. He had the Wentworth hair, the golden-brown, which, like all their other family features, even down to their illnesses, the race was proud of, and a handsome silky beard. He had lived a hard life of pleasure and punishment; but though he had reached middle age, there was not a hair on the handsome reprobate's head which had changed out of its original colour. He looked languidly up when the door opened, but did not stop the delicate fence which he was carrying on against the moth, nor the polyglot oaths which he was swearing at it softly half under his breath.
"Frank, I suppose," he said, calmly, as the Curate came hastily forward. "How d'ye do? I am very glad you've come back. The country was very charming the first day, but that's a charm that doesn't last. I suppose you've dined: or will you ring and order something?" he said, turning slowly round on his sofa. "Accidente! the thing will kill itself after all. Would you mind catching it in your handkerchief before you sit down? But don't take away the candles. It's too late to make any exertion," said the elegant prodigal, leaning back languidly on his sofa; "but I assure you that light is half my life."
The Curate was tired, heated, and indignant. He lifted the candles away from the table, and then put them back again, too much excited to think of the moth. "Your arrival must have been very sudden," he said, throwing himself into the nearest chair. "I was very much surprised by your message. It looks inhospitable, but I see you make yourself quite at home – "
"Perfectly," said the elder brother, resuming his cigar. "I always do. It is much more agreeable for all parties. But I don't know how it is that a man's younger brothers are always so rapid and unreasonable in their movements. Instead of saving that unhappy insect, you have precipitated its fate. Poor thing – and it had no soul," said the intruder, with a tone of pathos. The scene altogether was a curious one. Snugly sheltered from the draught, but enjoying the coolness of the atmosphere which it produced, lay the figure on the sofa at perfect ease and leisure, with the light shed brightly upon him, on his shining beard, the white cool expanse of linen at his breast, and the bright hues of his dressing-gown. Near him, fatigued, dusty, indignant, and perplexed, sat the Curate, with the night air playing upon him, and moving his disordered hair on his forehead; while at the other end of the room hovered the stranger who had followed Mr Wentworth – a broad, shabby, indistinct figure, who stood with his back to the others, looking vaguely out of the window into the darkness. Over these two the night air blew with no small force between the open windows, making the candles on the centre table flare wildly, and flapping the white tablecloth. An occasional puff from the cigar floated now and then across the room. It was a pause before the storm.
"I was about to say," said the Perpetual Curate, "that though it might seem inhospitable, the first thing I had to ask was, What brought you here – and why did you send for me?"
"Don't be abrupt, pray," said Jack, taking his cigar from his mouth, and slightly waving the hand that held it. "Don't let us plunge into business all at once. You bring a sense of fatigue into the room with you, and the atmosphere was delightful a little while ago. I flatter myself I know how to enjoy the cool of the evening. Suppose you were to – ah – refresh yourself a little," he said, with a disapproving glance at his brother's dusty boots, "before we begin to talk of our affairs."
The Curate of St Roque's got up from his chair, feeling that he had an unchristian inclination to kick the heir of the Wentworths. As he could not do that, he shut the window behind him emphatically, and extinguished the flaring candles on the centre table. "I detest a draught," said the Perpetual Curate, which, unfortunately, was not a statement entirely founded on fact, though so far true in the present instance that he hated anything originated by the intruder. "I have hurried home in reply to your message, and I should be glad to know what it means, now that I am here – what you are in trouble about – and why you come to me – and what you have to do with him?"
"But you need not have deranged the temperature," said Jack. "Impetuosity always distresses me. All these are questions which it will take some time to answer. Let me persuade you, in the first place, to make yourself comfortable. Don't mind me; I am at the crisis of my novel, which is very interesting. I have just been thinking how it might be adapted for the stage – there's a character that Fechter could make anything of. Now, my dear fellow, don't stand on ceremony. Take a bath and change your dress, and in the mean time there will be time to cook something – the cookery here is not bad for the country. After that we'll discuss all our news. I daresay our friend there is in no hurry," said the elder brother, opening his book and puffing slowly towards the Curate the languid smoke of his cigar.
"But, by Jove, I am in a hurry, though," said that nameless individual, coming forward. "It's all very well for you: you put a man up to everything that's dangerous, and then you leave him in the lurch, and say it don't matter. I daresay it don't matter to you. All that you've done has been to share the profit – you've nothing to do with the danger; but I'm savage to-night, and I don't mean to stand it any more," said the stranger, his great chest expanding with a panting breath. He, too, looked as if he would have liked to seize the languid spectator in his teeth and shake some human feeling into him. Jack Wentworth raised his eyebrows and looked at him, as he might have looked at a wild beast in a rage.
"Sit down, savage, and be quiet," he said. "Why should I trouble myself about you? – any fool could get into your scrape. I am not in the habit of interfering in a case of common crime. What I do, I do out of pity," he continued, with an air of superiority, quite different from his tone to his brother. But this look, which had answered before, was not successful to-night.
"By Jove, I am savage!" said the other, setting his teeth, "and I know enough of your ways to teach you different behaviour. The parson has treated me like a gentleman – like what I used to be, though he don't like me; but you! – By Jove! It was only my own name I signed, after all," he continued, after a pause, lowering his voice; "but you, you blackleg – "
"Stop a little," said the Curate, rising up. "Though you seem both to have forgotten it, this is my room. I don't mean to have any altercations here. I have taken you in for the sake of your – family," said Mr Wentworth, with a momentary gasp, "and you have come because you are my brother. I don't deny any natural claims upon me; but I am master of my own house and my own leisure. Get up, Jack, and tell me what you want. When I understand what it is, you can lounge at your will; but in the mean time get up and explain: and as for you, Wodehouse – "
Jack Wentworth faced round on his sofa, and then, with a kind of involuntary motion, slid his feet to the ground. He looked at his brother with extreme amazement as he closed his novel and tossed away the end of his cigar. "It's much better not to mention names," he said, in a half-apologetic way. "Our friend here is under a temporary cloud. His name, in fact, is – Smith, I think." But as he spoke he sat upright, a little startled to find that Frank, whom he remembered only as a lad, was no longer to be coerced and concussed. As for the other, he came forward with the alacrity of a man who began to see some hope.
