The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 39 (1/2)

XXXIX

Mr. Morgan did not go home direct from the investigation of the morning; on the contrary, he paid various visits, and got through a considerable amount of parish business, before he turned his face towards the Rectory. On the whole, his feelings were far from being comfortable. He did not know, certainly, who Mr. Wentworth’s witness was, but he had an unpleasant conviction that it was somebody who would clear the Curate. “Of course I shall be very glad,” the Rector said to himself; but it is a fact, that in reality he was far from being glad, and that a secret conviction of this sentiment, stealing into his mind, made matters still more uncomfortable. This private sense of wishing evil to another man, of being unwilling and vexed to think well of his neighbour, was in itself enough to disturb the Rector’s tranquillity; and when to this was added the aggravation that his wife had always been on the other side, and had warned him against proceeding, and might, if she pleased, say, “I told you so,” it will be apparent that Mr. Morgan’s uneasiness was not without foundation. Instead of going home direct to acquaint his wife with the circumstances, about which he knew she must be curious, it was late in the afternoon before the Rector opened his own gate. Even then he went through the garden with a reluctant step, feeling it still more difficult to meet her now than it would have been at first, although his delay had arisen from the thought that it would be easier to encounter her keen looks after an interval. There was, however, no keen look to be dreaded at this moment. Mrs. Morgan was busy with her ferns, and she did not look up as her husband approached. She went on with her occupation, examining carefully what withered fronds there might be about her favourite maidenhair, even when he stopped by her side. Though her husband’s shadow fell across the plants she was tending, Mrs. Morgan, for the first time in her married life, did not look up to welcome the Rector. She made no demonstration, said no word of displeasure, but only showed herself utterly absorbed in, and devoted to, her ferns. There was, to be sure, no such lover of ferns in the neighbourhood of Carlingford as the Rector’s wife.

As for Mr. Morgan, he stood by her side in a state of great discomfort and discomfiture. The good man’s perceptions were not very clear, but he saw that she had heard from someone the issue of the morning’s inquiry, and that she was deeply offended by his delay, and that, in short, they had arrived at a serious difference, the first quarrel since their marriage. Feeling himself in the wrong, Mr. Morgan naturally grew angry too.

“I should like to have dinner earlier today,” he said, with the usual indiscretion of an aggrieved husband. “Perhaps you will tell the cook, my dear. I think I should like to have it at five, if possible. It can’t make much difference for one day.”

Mrs. Morgan raised herself up from her ferns, and no doubt it was a relief to her to find herself provided with so just a cause of displeasure. “Much difference!” cried the Rector’s wife; “it is half-past four now. I wonder how you could think of such a thing, William. There is some lamb, which of course is not put down to roast yet, and the ducks. If you wish the cook to give warning immediately, you may send such a message. It is just like a man to think it would make no difference! But I must say, to do them justice,” said the Rector’s wife, “it is not like a man of your college!” When she had fired this double arrow, she took off her gardening gloves and lifted her basket. “I suppose you told Mr. Proctor that you wished to dine early?” said Mrs. Morgan, with severity, pausing on the threshold. “Of course it is quite impossible to have dinner at five unless he knows.”

“Indeed I⁠—I forgot all about Proctor,” said the Rector, who now saw the inexpediency of his proposal. “On second thoughts, I see it does not matter much. But after dinner I expect some people about Mr. Wentworth’s business. It was not settled this morning, as I expected.”

“So I heard,” said Mrs. Morgan. “I will tell Thomas to show them into the library,” and she went indoors, carrying her basket. As for the Rector, he stood silent, looking after her, and feeling wonderfully discomfited. Had she found fault with him for his delay⁠—had she even said “I told you so!” it would have been less overwhelming than this indifference. They had never had a quarrel before, and the effect was proportionately increased. After standing bewildered at the door for a few minutes, he retired into his study, where the change in his wife’s demeanour haunted him, and obscured Mr. Wentworth. Mrs. Morgan sat at the head of the table at dinner with an equal want of curiosity. Even when the subject was discussed between the Rector and Mr. Proctor, she asked no questions⁠—a course of procedure very puzzling and trying to Mr. Morgan, who could not make it out.

It was after eight o’clock before the tribunal of the morning was reconstituted at the Rectory. Most of the gentlemen came late, and the little assembly brought with it a flavour of port, which modified the serious atmosphere. When the bed of justice was again formed, Mr. Wentworth entered with the bodyguard of Wentworths, which numbered half as many as his judges. Half from curiosity, half from a reluctant inclination to please his father, Jack had joined the others, and they came in together, all of them noticeable men, profoundly different, yet identified as belonging to each other by the touching bond of family resemblance. After the four gentlemen had taken possession of their corner, Mr. Waters made a somewhat hurried entry, bringing after him the sullen reluctant figure of Wodehouse, who made an awkward bow to the assembled potentates, and looked ashamed and vigilant, and very ill at ease. Mr. Waters made a hasty explanation to the Rector before he sat down by the side of his unlucky client. “I thought it possible there might be some attempt made to shift the blame upon him, therefore I thought it best to bring him,” said the lawyer. Mr. Morgan gave him a dry little nod without answering. To tell the truth, the Rector felt anything but comfortable; when he glanced up at the stranger, who was looking askance at the people in the room as if they had been so many policemen in disguise, a disagreeable sudden conviction that this sullen rascal looked a great deal more like the guilty man than Mr. Wentworth did, came into Mr. Morgan’s mind, and made him sick with annoyance and embarrassment. If it should turn out so! if it should become apparent that he, for private prejudices of his own, had been persecuting his brother! This thought produced an actual physical effect for the moment upon the Rector, but its immediate visible consequence was simply to make him look more severe, almost spiteful, in a kind of unconscious self-vindication. Last of all, Elsworthy, who began to be frightened too, but whose fears were mingled with no compunction nor blame of himself, stole in and found an uncomfortable seat on a stool near the door, where scarcely anyone saw him, by favour of Thomas, and screened by the high back of the Rector’s easy-chair. When all were assembled Mr. Morgan spoke.

“We are met this evening, gentlemen, to complete, if there is sufficient time, the investigation we began this morning,” said the Rector. “I have no doubt I express the sentiments of everyone present when I say I shall be glad⁠—unfeignedly glad,” said Mr. Morgan, with a defiant emphasis, which was meant to convince himself, “to find that Mr. Wentworth’s witness is of sufficient importance to justify the delay. As we were interrupted this morning solely on his account, I presume it will be most satisfactory that this witness should be called at once.”

“I should like to say something in the first place,” said the Curate. Mr. Morgan made an abrupt nod indicative of his consent, and, instead of looking at the defendant, shaded his eyes with his hand, and made figures with his pen upon the blotting-paper. A conviction, against which it was impossible to strive, had taken possession of the Rector’s soul. He listened to Frank Wentworth’s address with a kind of impatient annoyance and resistance. “What is the good of saying any more about it?” Mr. Morgan was saying in his soul. “For heaven’s sake let us bury it and be done with it, and forget that we ever made such asses of ourselves.” But at the same time the Rector knew this was quite impossible; and as he sat leaning over his blotting-book, writing down millions after millions with his unconscious pen, he looked a very model of an unwilling listener⁠—a prejudiced judge⁠—a man whom no arguments could convince; which was the aspect under which he appeared to the Curate of St. Roque’s.

“I should like to say something first,” said the Perpetual Curate. “I could not believe it possible that I, being tolerably well known in Carlingford as I have always supposed, could be suspected by any rational being of such an insane piece of wickedness as has been laid to my charge; and consequently it did not occur to me to vindicate myself, as I perhaps ought to have done, at the beginning. I have been careless all along of vindicating myself. I had an idea,” said the young man, with involuntary disdain, “that I might trust, if not to the regard, at least to the common sense of my friends⁠—”

Here John Brown, who was near his unwary client, plucked at the Curate’s coat, and brought him to a momentary half-angry pause. “Softly, softly,” said Dr. Marjoribanks; “common sense has nothing to do with facts; we’re inquiring into facts at this moment; and, besides, it’s a very foolish and unjustifiable confidence to trust to any man’s common sense,” said the old Doctor, with a humorous glance from under his shaggy eyebrows at his fellow-judges; upon which there ensued a laugh, not very agreeable in its tone, which brought the Rector to a white heat of impatience and secret rage.

“It appears to me that the witness ought to be called at once,” said Mr. Morgan, “if this is not a mere expedient to gain time, and if it is intended to make any progress tonight.”

“My explanations shall be very brief,” said Frank Wentworth, facing instantly to his natural enemy. “I have suspected from the beginning of this business who was the culprit, and have made every possible attempt to induce him to confess, and, so far as he could, amend the wrong that he had done. I have failed; and now the confession, the amende, must be made in public. I will now call my witness,” said the Curate. But this time a commotion rose in another part of the room. It was Wodehouse, who struggled to rise, and to get free from the detaining grasp of his companion.

“By Jove! I aint going to sit here and listen to a parcel of lies!” cried the vagabond. “If I am to be tried, at least I’ll have the real thing, by Jove!” He had risen up, and was endeavouring to pass Mr. Waters and get out, casting a suspicious defiant look round the room. The noise he made turned all eyes upon him, and the scrutiny he had brought upon himself redoubled his anxiety to get away. “I’ll not stand it, by Jove! Waters, let me go,” said the craven, whose confused imagination had mixed up all his evil doings together, and who already felt himself being carried off to prison. It was at this moment that Jack Wentworth rose from his place in his easy careless way, and went forward to the table to adjust the lamp, which was flaring a little. Wodehouse dropped back into a chair as soon as he caught the eye of this master of his fate. His big beard moved with a subterranean gasp like the panting of a hunted creature, and all the colour that had remained died away out of his haggard, frightened face. As for Jack Wentworth, he took no apparent notice of the shabby rascal whom he held in awe. “Rather warm this room for a court of justice. I hope Frank’s witness is not fat,” said Jack, putting himself up against the wall, and lifting languidly his glass to his eye⁠—which byplay was somewhat startling, but totally incomprehensible, to the amateur judges, who looked upon him with angry eyes.

“I must request that the proceedings may not be interrupted,” said Mr. Morgan; and then everybody looked towards the open door: the sight they saw there was enough to startle the calmest spectator. Elsworthy, who was seated close by, sprang from his stool with a low resounding howl of amazement, upsetting his lowly seat, and staggering back against the wall, in the excess of his wonder and consternation. The judges themselves forgot their decorum, and crowded round upon each other to stare⁠—old Mr. Western putting his arm round the Rector’s neck in his curiosity, as if they had been two boys at a peepshow. It was Miss Leonora Wentworth’s erect iron-grey figure that appeared in the doorway, half leading in, half pushing before her, the unfortunate cause of all the commotion⁠—Rosa Elsworthy herself. A change had passed upon the little girl’s rosy, dewy, April beauty. Her pretty dark eyes were enlarged and anxious, and full of tears; her cheeks had paled out of their sweet colour, her red lips were pressed tightly together. Passion and shame had set their marks upon the child’s forehead⁠—lightly, it is true, but still the traces were there; but beyond all other sentiments, anxiety, restless, breathless, palpitating, had possession of Mr. Wentworth’s all-important witness. It was very clear that, whatever might be the opinion of her judges, Rosa’s case was anything but hopeless in her own eyes. She came in drooping, shrinking, and abashed, as was natural; but her shame was secondary in Rosa’s mind, even in the moment of her humiliation. She came to a dead stop when she had made a few steps into the room, and cast furtive glances at the dread tribunal, and began to cry. She was trembling with nervous eagerness, with petulance and impatience. Almost all her judges, except the Rector and Mr. Proctor, had been known to Rosa from her earliest years. She was not afraid of them, nor cast down by any sense of overwhelming transgression⁠—on the contrary, she cast an appealing look round her, which implied that they could still set everything right if they would exert themselves; and then she began to cry.

“Gentlemen, before you ask any questions,” said Miss Leonora Wentworth, “I should like to explain why I am here. I came not because I approve of her, but because it is right that my nephew should have a respectable woman to take charge of the witness. She was brought to my house last night, and has been in my charge ever since;⁠—and I come with her now, not because I approve of her, but because she ought to be in charge of some woman,” said Miss Leonora, sitting down abruptly in the chair someone had placed for her. The chair was placed close by the spot where Rosa stood crying. Poor, pretty, forsaken child! Perhaps Miss Leonora, who sat beside her, and occupied the position of her protector, was of all the people present the only one who had not already forgiven Rosa, the only one who would have still been disposed to punish her, and did not pardon the weeping creature in her heart.

“Now that you’re here, Rosa,” said Dr. Marjoribanks, “the only sensible thing you can do is to dry your eyes and answer the questions that have to be put to you. Nobody will harm you if you speak the truth. Don’t be frightened, but dry your eyes, and let us hear what you have to say.”

“Poor little thing,” said old Mr. Western; “of course she has done very wrong. I don’t mean to defend her⁠—but, after all, she is but a child. Poor little thing! Her mother died, you know, when she was a baby. She had nobody to tell her how to behave.⁠—I don’t mean to defend her, for she has done very wrong, poor little⁠—”