The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 35 (2/3)

The Curate stood on the step of Elsworthy’s shop with his enemy behind, and the ungrateful vagabond whom he had rescued and guarded, standing in front of him, with that sneer on his lips. It was hard to refrain from the natural impulse which prompted him to pitch the vagabond out of his way. “Look here,” he said, sharply, “you have not much character to lose; but a scamp is a different thing from a criminal. I will make the principal people in Carlingford aware what were the precise circumstances under which you came here at Easter if you do not immediately restore this unhappy girl to her friends. Do you understand me? If it is not done at once I will make use of my information⁠—and you know what that means. You can defy me if you please; but in that case you had better make up your mind to the consequences; you will have to take your place as a⁠—”

“Stop!” cried Wodehouse, with a shiver. “We’re not by ourselves⁠—we’re in the public street. What do you mean by talking like that here? Come to my house, Wentworth⁠—there’s a good fellow⁠—I’ve ordered a dinner⁠—”

“Be silent, sir!” said the Curate. “I give you till noon tomorrow; after that I will spare you no longer. You understand what I mean. I have been too merciful already. Tomorrow, if everything is not arranged to my satisfaction here⁠—”

“It was my own name,” said Wodehouse, sullenly; “nobody can say it wasn’t my own name. You couldn’t do me any harm⁠—you know you wouldn’t, either, for the sake of the girls; I’ll⁠—I’ll give them a thousand pounds or so, if I find I can afford it. Come, you don’t mean that sort of thing, you know,” said the conscious criminal; “you wouldn’t do me any harm.”

“If I have to fight for my own reputation I shall not spare you,” cried the Curate. “Mind what I say! You are safe till twelve o’clock tomorrow; but after that I will have no mercy⁠—not for your sisters’ sake, not for any inducement in the world. If you want to be known as a⁠—”

“Oh Lord, don’t speak so loud!⁠—what do you mean? Wentworth, I say, hist! Mr. Wentworth! By Jove, he won’t listen to me!” cried Wodehouse, in an agony. When he found that the Curate was already out of hearing, the vagabond looked round him on every side with his natural instinct of suspicion. If he had known that Mr. Wentworth was thinking only of disgrace and the stern sentence of public opinion, Wodehouse could have put up with it; but he himself, in his guilty imagination, jumped at the bar and the prison which had haunted him for long. Somehow it felt natural that such a Nemesis should come to him after the morning’s triumph. He stood looking after the Curate, guilty and horror-stricken, till it occurred to him that he might be remarked; and then he made a circuit past Elsworthy’s shopwindow as far as the end of Prickett’s Lane, where he ventured to cross over so as to get to his own house. His own house!⁠—the wretched thrill of terror that went through him was a very sufficient offset against his momentary triumph; and this was succeeded by a flush of rage as he thought of the Curate’s other information. What was to be done? Every moment was precious; but he felt an instinctive horror of venturing out again in the daylight. When it approached the hour at which he had ordered that dinner at the Blue Boar, the humbled hero wrapped himself in an old overcoat which he found in the hall, and slunk into the inn like the clandestine wretch he was. He had no confidence in himself, but he had confidence in Jack Wentworth. He might still be able to help his unlucky associate out.

When Mr. Wentworth reached his rooms, he found that his guest had arrived before him, and consequently the threatened explanation with Mrs. Hadwin was forestalled for that night. Mr. Proctor and Gerald were sitting together, not at all knowing what to talk about; for the late Rector was aware that Frank Wentworth’s brother was on the verge of Rome, and was confused, and could not help feeling that his position between a man on the point of perversion in an ecclesiastical point of view, and another whose morals were suspected and whose character was compromised, was, to say the least, a very odd position for a clergyman of unblemished orthodoxy and respectability; besides, it was embarrassing, when he had come for a very private consultation, to find a stranger there before him. The Curate went in very full of what had just occurred. The events of the last two or three hours had worked a total change in his feelings. He was no longer the injured, insulted, silent object of a petty but virulent persecution. The contemptuous silence with which he had treated the scandal at first, and the still more obstinate sense of wrong which latterly had shut his lips and his heart, had given way today to warmer and more generous emotions. What would have seemed to him in the morning only the indignant reserve of a man unjustly suspected, appeared now a foolish and unfriendly reticence. The only thing which restrained him was a still lingering inclination to screen Wodehouse, if possible, from a public exposure, which would throw shame upon his sisters as well as himself. If any generosity, if any gentlemanly feeling, were still left in the vagabond’s soul, it was possible he might answer the Curate’s appeal; and Mr. Wentworth felt himself bound to offer no public explanation of the facts of the case until this last chance of escape had been left for the criminal. But, so far as regarded himself, his heart was opened, his wounded pride mollified, and he was ready enough to talk of what had just happened, and to explain the whole business to his anxious companions. When he joined them, indeed, he was so full of it as almost to forget that he himself was still believed the hero of the tale. “This unfortunate little girl has been here, and I have missed her,” he said, without in the least concealing his vexation, and the excitement which his rapid walk had not subdued; to the great horror of Mr. Proctor, who tried all he could, by telegraphic glances, to recall the young man to a sense of that fact that Sarah was in the room.

“I must say I think it is imprudent⁠—highly imprudent,” said the late Rector: “they will call these women to prove that she has been here again; and what conclusion but one can possibly be drawn from such a fact? I am very sorry to see you so unguarded.” He said this, seizing the moment after Sarah had removed the salmon, which was very good, and was served with a sauce which pleased Mr. Proctor all the more that he had not expected much from an impromptu dinner furnished by a Perpetual Curate; but the fact was, that Gerald’s arrival had awakened Mrs. Hadwin to a proper regard for her own credit, which was at stake.

When Sarah withdrew finally, and they were left alone, Frank Wentworth gave the fullest explanation he was able to his surprised auditors. He told them that it was Wodehouse, and not himself, whom Rosa had met in the garden, and whom she had no doubt come to seek at this crisis of their fortunes. There was not the least doubt in his own mind that Wodehouse had carried her away, and hidden her somewhere close at hand; and when he had given them all his reasons for thinking so, his hearers were of the same opinion; but Mr. Proctor continued very doubtful and perplexed, clear though the story was. He sat silent, brooding over the new mystery, while the brothers discussed the original questions.

“I cannot think why you did not go to the Rector at once and tell him all this,” said Gerald. “It is always best to put a stop to gossip. At least you will see him tomorrow, or let me see him⁠—”

“The Rector is deeply prejudiced against me,” said the Perpetual Curate, “for a very unworthy reason, if he has any reason at all. He has never asked me to explain. I shall not interfere with his investigation,” said the young man, haughtily; “let it go on. I have been working here for five years, and the Carlingford people ought to know better. As for the Rector, I will make no explanations to him.”

“It is not for the Rector, it is for yourself,” said Gerald; “and this fellow Wodehouse surely has no claim⁠—”

But at the sound of this name, Mr. Proctor roused himself from his pause of bewilderment, and took the words out of Mr. Wentworth’s mouth.

“He has been here since Easter; but why?” said the late Rector. “I cannot fancy why Mr. Wodehouse’s son should come to you when his father’s house was so near. In hiding? why was he in hiding? He is evidently a scamp,” said Mr. Proctor, growing red; “but that is not so unusual. I don’t understand⁠—I am bound to say I don’t understand it. He may be the culprit, as you say; but what was he doing here?”

“I took him in at Miss Wodehouse’s request. I cannot explain why⁠—she will tell you,” said the Curate. “As for Wodehouse, I have given him another chance till twelve o’clock tomorrow: if he does not make his appearance then⁠—”

Mr. Proctor had listened only to the first words; he kept moving uneasily in his seat while the Curate spoke. Then he broke in, “It appears I cannot see Miss Wodehouse,” he said, with an injured tone; “she does not see anyone. I cannot ask for any explanation; but it seems to me most extraordinary. It is three months since Easter. If he had been living with you all the time, there must have been some occasion for it. I don’t know what to think, for my part; and yet I always imagined that I was considered a friend of the family,” said the late Rector, with an aggrieved look. He took his glass of claret very slowly, looking at it as if expecting to see in the purple reflection some explanation of the mystery. As for Gerald Wentworth, he relapsed into silence when he found that his arguments did not alter Frank’s decision; he too was disappointed not to find his brother alone. He sat with his eyes cast down, and a singular look of abstraction on his face. He had got into a new atmosphere⁠—a different world. When his anxieties about Frank were satisfied, Gerald withdrew himself altogether from the little party. He sat there, it is true, not unaware of what was going on, and even from time to time joining in the conversation; but already a subtle change had come over Gerald. He might have been repeating an “office,” or carrying on a course of private devotions, from his looks. Rome had established her dualism in his mind. He had no longer the unity of an Englishman trained to do one thing at a time, and to do it with his might. He sat in a kind of languor, carrying on within himself a thread of thought, to which his external occupation gave no clue; yet at the same time suffering no indication to escape him of the real condition of his mind. The three were consequently far from being good company. Mr. Proctor, who was more puzzled than ever as to the true state of the case, could not unburden himself of his own intentions as he had hoped to do; and after a while the Curate, too, was silent, finding his statements received, as he thought, but coldly. It was a great relief to him when he was called out by Sarah to speak to someone, though his absence made conversation still more difficult for the two who were left behind. Mr. Proctor, from the other side of the table, regarded Gerald with a mixture of wonder and pity. He did not feel quite sure that it was not his duty to speak to him⁠—to expound the superior catholicity of the Church of England, and call his attention to the schismatic peculiarities of the Church of Rome. “It might do him good to read Burgon’s book,” Mr. Proctor said to himself; and by way of introducing that subject, he began to talk of Italy, which was not a bad device, and did credit to his invention. Meanwhile the Curate had gone to his study, wondering a little who could want him, and, to his utter bewilderment, found his aunt Dora, veiled, and wrapped up in a great shawl.

“Oh, Frank, my dear, don’t be angry! I couldn’t help coming,” cried Miss Dora. “Come and sit down by me here. I slipped out and did not even put on my bonnet, that nobody might know. Oh, Frank, I don’t know what to say. I am so afraid you have been wicked. I have just seen that⁠—that girl. I saw her out of my window. Frank! don’t jump up like that. I can’t go on telling you if you don’t stay quiet here.”

“Aunt, let me understand you,” cried the Curate. “You saw whom? Rosa Elsworthy? Don’t drive me desperate, as all the others do with their stupidity. You saw her? when?⁠—where?”

“Oh Frank, Frank! to think it should put you in such a way⁠—such a girl as that! Oh, my dear boy, if I had thought you cared so much, I never would have come to tell you. It wasn’t to encourage you⁠—it wasn’t. Oh, Frank, Frank! that it should come to this!” cried Miss Dora, shrinking back from him with fright and horror in her face.

“Come, we have no time to lose,” said the Curate, who was desperate. He picked up her shawl, which had fallen on the floor, and bundled her up in it in the most summary way. “Come, aunt Dora,” said the impetuous young man; “you know you were always my kindest friend. Nobody else can help me at this moment. I feel that you are going to be my deliverer. Come, aunt Dora⁠—we must go and find her, you and I. There is not a moment to lose.”

He had his arm round her, holding on her shawl. He raised her up from her chair, and supported her, looking at her as he had not done before since he was a boy at school, Miss Dora thought. She was too frightened, too excited, to cry, as she would have liked to do; but the proposal was so terrible and unprecedented that she leaned back trembling on her nephew’s arm, and could not move either to obey or to resist him. “Oh, Frank, I never went after any improper person in my life,” gasped aunt Dora. “Oh, my dear, don’t make me do anything that is wrong; they will say it is my fault!” cried the poor lady, gradually feeling herself obliged to stand on her feet and collect her forces. The shawl fell back from her shoulders as the Curate withdrew his arm. “You have lost my large pin,” cried aunt Dora, in despair; “and I have no bonnet. And oh! what will Leonora say? I never, never would have come to tell you if I had thought of this. I only came to warn you, Frank. I only intended⁠—”

“Yes,” said the Curate. The emergency was momentous, and he dared not lose patience. He found her large pin even, while she stood trembling, and stuck it into her shawl as if it had been a skewer. “You never would have come if you had not been my guardian angel,” said the deceitful young man, whose heart was beating high with anxiety and hope. “Nobody else would do for me what you are going to do⁠—but I have always had confidence in my aunt Dora. Come, come! We have not a moment to lose.”