The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 20 (2/2)

Before he had reached that goal, however, he met a group who were evidently returning from some little dinner in Grange Lane. Mr. Wentworth took off his hat hastily in recognition of Mrs. Morgan, who was walking by her husband’s side, with a bright-coloured hood over her head instead of a bonnet. The Curate, who was a man of taste, could not help observing, even in the darkness, and amid all his preoccupations, how utterly the cherry-coloured trimmings of her headdress were out of accordance with the serious countenance of the Rector’s wife, who was a little heated with her walk. She was a good woman, but she was not fair to look upon; and it occurred to Mr. Wentworth to wonder, if Lucy were to wait ten years for him, would the youthful grace dry and wither out of her like this! And then all at once another idea flashed upon his mind, without any wish of his. Like the unhappy lover in the ballad, he was suddenly aware of a temptation⁠—

“How there looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright,

And how he knew it was a fiend.”

“Of course the Rectory will go to Frank.” He could not tell why at that moment the words rang into his ear with such a penetrating sound. That he hated himself for being able to think of such a possibility made no difference. It came darting and tingling into his mind like one of those suggestions of blasphemy which the devils whispered in Christian’s ear as he went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He went on faster than ever to escape from it, scarcely observing that Mrs. Morgan, instead of simply acknowledging his bow as she passed, stopped to shake hands, and to say how glad she was he had come back again. He thought of it afterwards with wonder and a strange gratitude. The Rector’s wife was not like the conventional type of a pitying angel; and even had she been so, he had not time to recognise her at that moment as he went struggling with his demons to Mr. Wodehouse’s green door.