The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 30 (2/2)

As for Miss Leonora, she waited for her nephew, and, when he was ready, took his arm and walked with him up Grange Lane to her own door, where they encountered Miss Wentworth and Miss Dora returning from church, and overwhelmed them with astonishment. But it was not about his own affairs that they talked. Miss Leonora did not say a word to her nephew about himself. She was talking of Gerald most of the time, and inquiring into all the particulars of the Squire’s late “attack.” And she would very fain have found out what Jack’s motive was in coming to Carlingford; but as for Rosa Elsworthy and her concerns, the strong-minded woman ignored them completely. Mr. Wentworth even went with her to lunch, on her urgent invitation; and it was from his aunts’ house that he took his way to Wharfside, pausing at the green door to ask after the Miss Wodehouses, who were, John said, with solemnity, as well as could be expected. They were alone, and they did not feel equal to seeing anybody⁠—even Mr. Wentworth; and the Perpetual Curate, who would have given all he had in the world for permission to soothe Lucy in her sorrow, went away sadly from the hospitable door, which was now for the first time closed to him. He could not go to Wharfside, to the “district” through which they had so often gone together, about which they had talked, when all the little details discussed were sweet with the love which they did not name, without going deeper and deeper into that sweet shadow of Lucy which was upon his way wherever he went. He could not help missing her voice when the little choir, which was so feeble without her, sang the “Magnificat,” which, somehow, Mr. Wentworth always associated with her image. He read the same sermon to the Wharfside people which he had preached in St. Roque’s, and saw, with a little surprise, that it drew tears from the eyes of his more openhearted hearers, who did not think of the proprieties. He could see their hands stealing up to their faces, and a great deal of persistent winking on the part of the stronger members of the congregation. At the close of the service Tom Burrows came up to the Curate with a downcast countenance. “Please, sir, if I’ve done ye injustice in my own mind, as went sore against the grain, and wouldn’t have happened but for the women, I axes your pardon,” said the honest bargeman, which was balm and consolation to Mr. Wentworth. There was much talk in Prickett’s Lane on the subject as he went to see the sick woman in No. 10. “There aint no doubt as he sets our duty before us clear,” said one family mother; “he don’t leave the men no excuse for their goings-on. He all but named the Bargeman’s Arms out plain, as it was the place all mischief comes from.” “If he’d have married Miss Lucy, like other folks, at Easter,” said one of the brides whom Mr. Wentworth had blessed, “such wicked stories couldn’t never have been made up.” “A story may be made up, or it mayn’t be made up,” said a more experienced matron; “but it can’t be put out of the world unbeknowst no more nor a babby. I don’t believe in stories getting up that aint true. I don’t say as he don’t do his duty; but things was different in Mr. Bury’s time, as was the real Rector; and, as I was a-saying, a tale’s like a babby⁠—it may come when it didn’t ought to come, or when it aint wanted, but you can’t do away with it, anyhow as you like to try.” Mr. Wentworth did not hear this dreary prediction as he went back again into the upper world. He was in much better spirits, on the whole. He had calmed his own mind and moved the hearts of others, which is to every man a gratification, even though nothing higher should be involved. And he had regained the moral countenance of Tom Burrows, which most of all was a comfort to him. More than ever he longed to go and tell Lucy as he passed by the green door. Tom Burrows’s repentant face recalled Mr. Wentworth’s mind to the fact that a great work was doing in Wharfside, which, after all, was more worth thinking of than any tantalising vision of an impossible benefice. But this very thought, so consoling in itself, reminded him of all his vexations, of the public inquiry into his conduct which was hanging over him, and of his want of power to offer to Lucy the support and protection of which she might so soon stand in need; and having thus drawn upon his head once more his whole burden of troubles, Mr. Wentworth went in to eat his dinner with what appetite he could.

The Perpetual Curate sat up late that night, as indeed was his custom. He sat late, hearing, as everybody does who sits up alone in a hushed and sleeping household, a hundred fantastic creaks and sounds which did not mean anything, and of which he took no notice. Once, indeed, when it was nearly midnight, he fancied he heard the garden-gate close hurriedly, but explained it to himself as people do when they prefer not to give themselves trouble. About one o’clock in the morning, however, Mr. Wentworth could no longer be in any doubt that some stealthy step was passing his door and moving about the house. He was not alarmed, for Mrs. Hadwin had occasional “attacks,” like most people of her age; but he put down his pen and listened. No other sound was to be heard except this stealthy step, no opening of doors, nor whisper of voices, nor commotion of any kind; and after a while Mr. Wentworth’s curiosity was fully awakened. When he heard it again, he opened his door suddenly, and threw a light upon the staircase and little corridor into which his room opened. The figure he saw there startled him more than if it had been a midnight robber. It was only Sarah, the housemaid, white and shivering with terror, who fell down upon her knees before him. “Oh, Mr. Wentworth, it aint my fault!” cried Sarah. The poor girl was only partially dressed, and trembled pitifully. “They’ll say it was my fault; and oh, sir, it’s my character I’m a-thinking of,” said Sarah, with a sob; and the Curate saw behind her the door of Wodehouse’s room standing open, and the moonlight streaming into the empty apartment. “I daren’t go downstairs to see if he’s took anything,” cried poor Sarah, under her breath; “there might be more of them about the place. But oh, Mr. Wentworth, if Missis finds out as I gave him the key, what will become of me?” Naturally, it was her own danger which had most effect upon Sarah. Her full, good-humoured face was all wet and stained with crying, her lips quivering, her eyes dilated. Perhaps a thrill of private disappointment mingled with her dread of losing her character. “He used to tell me all as he was a-going to do,” said Sarah; “but, oh, sir, he’s been and gone away, and I daren’t go downstairs to look at the plate, and I’ll never more sleep in quiet, if I was to live a century. It aint as I care for him, but it’s the key and my character as I’m a-thinking of,” cried the poor girl, bursting into audible sobs that could be restrained no longer. Mr. Wentworth took a candle and went into Wodehouse’s empty room, leaving her to recover her composure. Everything was cleared and packed up in that apartment. The little personal property he had, the shabby boots and worn habiliments, had disappeared totally; even the rubbish of woodcarving on his table was cleared away. Not a trace that he had been there a few hours ago remained in the place. The Curate came out of the room with an anxious countenance, not knowing what to make of it. And by this time Sarah’s sobs had roused Mrs. Hadwin, who stood, severe and indignant, at her own door in her nightcap, to know what was the matter. Mr. Wentworth retired into his own apartments after a word of explanation, leaving the mistress and maid to fight it out. He himself was more disturbed and excited than he could have described. He could not tell what this new step meant, but felt instinctively that it denoted some new development in the tangled web of his own fortunes. Some hidden danger seemed to him to be gathering in the air over the house of mourning, of which he had constituted himself a kind of guardian. He could not sleep all night, but kept starting at every sound, thinking now that the skulking rascal, who was Lucy’s brother, was coming back, and now that his departure was only a dream. Mr. Wentworth’s restlessness was not soothed by hearing all the night through, in the silence of the house, suppressed sobs and sounds of weeping proceeding from the attic overhead, which poor Sarah shared with her fellow-servant. Perhaps the civilities of “the gentleman” had dazzled Sarah, and been too much for her peace of mind; perhaps it was only her character, as the poor girl said. But as often as the Curate started from his uneasy and broken snatches of sleep, he heard the murmur of crying and consoling upstairs. Outside the night was spreading forth those sweetest unseen glories of the starlight and the moonlight and the silence, which Nature reserves for her own enjoyment, when the weary human creatures are out of the way and at rest;⁠—and Jack Wentworth slept the sleep of the righteous, uttering delicate little indications of the depth of his slumber, which it would have been profane to call by any vulgar name. He slept sweetly while his brother watched and longed for daylight, impatient for the morrow which must bring forth something new. The moonlight streamed full into the empty room, and made mysterious combinations of the furniture, and chased the darkness into corners which each held their secret. This was how Mrs. Hadwin’s strange lodger, whom nobody could ever make out, disappeared as suddenly as he had come, without any explanations; and only a very few people could ever come to understand what he had to do with the after-events which struck Grange Lane dumb, and turned into utter confusion all the ideas and conclusions of society in Carlingford.