The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 16 (2/2)

“No, Louisa, no⁠—only you don’t understand,” said her husband, with a groan: he had raised his head, and was looking at her with a hopeless gleam of impatience in the pity and anguish of his eyes. He took her little hand and held it between his own, which were trembling with all this strain⁠—her little tender helpless woman’s hand, formed only for soft occupations and softer caresses; it was not a hand which could help a man in such an emergency; it was without any grasp in it to take hold upon him, or force of love to part⁠—a clinging impotent hand, such as holds down, but cannot raise up. He held it in a close tremulous pressure, as she stood looking down upon him, questioning him with eager hopeful eyes, and taking comfort in her ignorance from his silence, and the way in which he held her. Poor Louisa concluded she was yet to win the day.

“I will turn Puseyite too,” she said with a strange little touch of attempted laughter. “I don’t want to have any opinions different from my husband’s; and you don’t think your father is likely to do anything to drive you out of the church? You have only given us a terrible fright, dear,” she continued, beginning to tremble again, as he shook his head and turned away from her. “You did not really mean such a dreadful thing as sending me away. You could not do without me, Gerald⁠—you know you could not.” Her breath was getting short, her heart quickening in its throbs⁠—the smile that was quivering on her face got no response from her husband’s downcast eyes. And then poor Louisa lost all her courage; she threw herself down at his feet, kneeling to him. “Oh, Gerald, it is not because you want to get rid of me? You are not doing it for that? If you don’t stay in the Rectory, we shall be ruined⁠—we shall not have enough to eat! and the Rectory will go to Frank, and your children will be cast upon the world⁠—and what, oh what is it for, unless it is to get rid of me?” cried Mrs. Wentworth. “You could have as much freedom as you like here at your own living⁠—nobody would ever interfere or say what are you doing? and the Bishop is papa’s old friend. Oh, Gerald, be wise in time, and don’t throw away all our happiness for a fancy. If it was anything that could not be arranged, I would not mind so much; but if we all promise to give in to you, and that you shall do what you please, and nobody will interfere, how can you have the heart to make us all so wretched? We will not even be respectable,” said the weeping woman; “a family without any father, and a wife without her husband⁠—and he living all the time! Oh, Gerald, though I think I surely might be considered as much as candles, have the altar covered with lights if you wish it; and if you never took off your surplice any more, I would never say a word. You can do all that and stay in the Rectory. You have not the heart⁠—surely⁠—surely you have not the heart⁠—all for an idea of your own, to bring this terrible distress upon the children and me?”

“God help us all!” said Gerald, with a sigh of despair, as he lifted her up sobbing in a hysterical fit, and laid her on the sofa. He had to stand by her side for a long time holding her hand, and soothing her, with deeper and deeper shadows growing over his face. As for Frank, after pacing the room in great agitation for some time, after trying to interpose, and failing, he went away in a fever of impatience and distress into the garden, wondering whether he could ever find means to take up the broken thread, and urge again upon his brother the argument which, but for this fatal interruption, he thought might have moved him. But gathering thoughts came thick upon the Perpetual Curate. He did not go back to make another attempt, even when he knew by the sounds through the open windows that Louisa had been led to her own room upstairs. He stood outside and looked at the troubled house, which seemed to stand so serene and secure in the sunshine. Who could have supposed that it was torn asunder in such a hopeless fashion? And Louisa’s suggestion came into his mind, and drove him wild with a sense of horror and involuntary guilt, as though he had been conspiring against them. “The Rectory will go to Frank.” Was it his fault that at that moment a vision of Lucy Wodehouse, sweet and strong and steadfast⁠—a delicate, firm figure, on which a man could lean in his trouble⁠—suddenly rose up before the Curate’s eyes? Fair as the vision was, he would have banished it if he could, and hated himself for being capable of conjuring it up at such a time. Was it for him to profit by the great calamity which would make his brother’s house desolate? He could not endure the thought, nor himself for finding it possible; and he was ashamed to look in Gerald’s face with even the shadow of such an imagination on his own. He tapped at the library window after a while, and told his brother that he was going up to the Hall. Louisa had gone upstairs, and her husband sat once more, vacant yet occupied, by his writing-table. “I will follow you presently,” said Gerald. “Speak to my father without any hesitation, Frank; it is better to have it over while we are all together⁠—for it must be concluded now.” And the Curate saw in the shadow of the dim apartment that his brother lifted from the table the grand emblem of all anguish and victory, and pressed upon it his pale lips. The young man turned away with the shadow of that cross standing black between him and the sunshine. His heart ached at the sight of the symbol most sacred and most dear in the world. In an agony of grief and impatience, he went away sadly through the familiar road to his father’s house. Here had he to stand by and see this sacrifice accomplished. This was all that had come of his mission of consolation and help.