The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 42 (1/2)

XLII

Frank Wentworth once more went up Grange Lane, a thoughtful and a sober man. Exhilaration comes but by moments in the happiest of lives⁠—and already he began to remember how very little he had to be elated about, and how entirely things remained as before. Even Lucy; her letter very probably might be only an effusion of friendship; and at all events, what could he say to her⁠—what did he dare in honour say? And then his mind went off to think of the two rectories, between which he had fallen as between two stools: though he had made up his mind to accept neither, he did not the less feel a certain mortification in seeing that his relations on both sides were so willing to bestow their gifts elsewhere. He could not tolerate the idea of succeeding Gerald in his own person, but still he found it very disagreeable to consent to the thought that Huxtable should replace him⁠—Huxtable, who was a good fellow enough, but of whom Frank Wentworth thought, as men generally think of their brothers-in-law, with a half-impatient, half-contemptuous wonder what Mary could ever have seen in so commonplace a man. To think of him as rector of Wentworth inwardly chafed the spirit of the Perpetual Curate. As he was going along, absorbed in his own thoughts, he did not perceive how his approach was watched for from the other side of the way by Elsworthy, who stood with his bundle of newspapers under his arm and his hat in his hand, watching for “his clergyman” with submission and apology on the surface, and hidden rancour underneath. Elsworthy was not penitent; he was furious and disappointed. His mistake and its consequences were wholly humiliating, and had not in them a single saving feature to atone for the wounds of his self-esteem. The Curate had not only baffled and beaten him, but humbled him in his own eyes, which is perhaps, of all others, the injury least easy to forgive. It was, however, with an appearance of the profoundest submission that he stood awaiting the approach of the man he had tried so much to injure.

“Mr. Wentworth, sir,” said Elsworthy, “if I was worth your while, I might think as you were offended with me; but seeing I’m one as is so far beneath you”⁠—he went on with a kind of grin, intended to represent a deprecatory smile, but which would have been a snarl had he dared⁠—“I can’t think as you’ll bear no malice. May I ask, sir, if there’s a-going to be any difference made?”

“In what respect, Elsworthy?” said the Curate, shortly.

“Well, sir, I can’t tell,” said the clerk of St. Roque’s. “If a clergyman was to bear malice, it’s in his power to make things very unpleasant. I don’t speak of the place at church, which aint either here nor there⁠—it’s respectable, but it aint lucrative; but if you was to stretch a point, Mr. Wentworth, by continuing the papers and suchlike⁠—it aint that I value the money,” said Elsworthy, “but I’ve been a faithful servant; and I might say, if you was to take it in a right spirit, an ’umble friend, Mr. Wentworth,” he continued, after a little pause, growing bolder. “And now, as I’ve that unfortunate creature to provide for, and no one knowing what’s to become of her⁠—”

“I wonder that you venture to speak of her to me,” said the Curate, with a little indignation, “after all the warnings I gave you. But you ought to consider that you are to blame a great deal more than she is. She is only a child; if you had taken better care of her⁠—but you would not pay any attention to my warning;⁠—you must bear the consequences as you best can.”

“Well, sir,” said Elsworthy, “if you’re a-going to bear malice, I haven’t got nothing to say. But there aint ten men in Carlingford as wouldn’t agree with me that when a young gentleman, even if he is a clergyman, takes particklar notice of a pretty young girl, it aint just for nothing as he does it⁠—not to say watching over her paternal to see as she wasn’t out late at night, and suchlike. But bygones is bygones, sir,” said Elsworthy, “and is never more to be mentioned by me. I don’t ask no more, if you’ll but do the same⁠—”

“You won’t ask no more?” said the Curate, angrily; “do you think I am afraid of you? I have nothing more to say, Elsworthy. Go and look after your business⁠—I will attend to mine; and when we are not forced to meet, let us keep clear of each other. It will be better both for you and me.”

The Curate passed on with an impatient nod; but his assailant did not intend that he should escape so easily. “I shouldn’t have thought, sir, as you’d have borne malice,” said Elsworthy, hastening on after him, yet keeping half a step behind. “I’m a humbled man⁠—different from what I ever thought to be. I could always keep up my head afore the world till now; and if it aint your fault, sir⁠—as I humbly beg your pardon for ever being so far led away as to believe it was⁠—all the same it’s along of you.”

“What do you mean?” said the Curate, who, half amused and half indignant at the change of tone, had slackened his pace to listen to this new accusation.

“What I mean, sir, is, that if you hadn’t been so good and so kindhearted as to take into your house the⁠—the villain as has done it all, him and Rosa could never have known each other. I allow as it was nothing but your own goodness as did it; but it was a black day for me and mine,” said the dramatist, with a pathetic turn of voice. “Not as I’m casting no blame on you, as is well known to be⁠—”

“Never mind what I’m well known to be,” said the Curate; “the other day you thought I was the villain. If you can tell me anything you want me to do, I will understand that⁠—but I am not desirous to know your opinion of me,” said the careless young man. As he stood listening impatiently, pausing a second time, Dr. Marjoribanks came out to his door and stepped into his brougham to go off to his morning round of visits. The Doctor took off his hat when he saw the Curate, and waved it to him cheerfully with a gesture of congratulation. Dr. Marjoribanks was quite stanch and honest, and would have manfully stood by his intimates in dangerous circumstances; but somehow he preferred success. It was pleasanter to be able to congratulate people than to condole with them. He preferred it, and nobody could object to so orthodox a sentiment. Most probably, if Mr. Wentworth had still been in partial disgrace, the Doctor would not have seen him in his easy glance down the road; but though Mr. Wentworth was aware of that, the mute congratulation had yet its effect upon him. He was moved by that delicate symptom of how the wind was blowing in Carlingford, and forgot all about Elsworthy, though the man was standing by his side.

“As you’re so good as to take it kind, sir,” said the clerk of St. Roque’s⁠—“and, as I was a-saying, it’s well known as you’re always ready to hear a poor man’s tale⁠—perhaps you’d let bygones be bygones, and not make no difference? That wasn’t all, Mr. Wentworth,” he continued eagerly, as the Curate gave an impatient nod, and turned to go on. “I’ve heard as this villain is rich, sir, by means of robbing of his own flesh and blood;⁠—but it aint for me to trust to what folks says, after the experience I’ve had, and never can forgive myself for being led away,” said Elsworthy; “it’s well known in Carlingford⁠—”

“For heaven’s sake come to the point and be done with it,” said the Curate. “What is it you want me to do?”

“Sir,” said Elsworthy, solemnly, “you’re a real gentleman, and you don’t bear no malice for what was a mistake⁠—and you aint one to turn your back on an unfortunate family⁠—and Mr. Wentworth, sir, you aint a-going to stand by and see me and mine wronged, as have always wished you well. If we can’t get justice of him, we can get damages,” cried Elsworthy. “He aint to be let off as if he’d done no harm⁠—and seeing as it was along of you⁠—”

“Hold your tongue, sir!” cried the Curate. “I have nothing to do with it. Keep out of my way, or at least learn to restrain your tongue. No more, not a word more,” said the young man, indignantly. He went off with such a sweep and wind of anger and annoyance, that the slower and older complainant had no chance to follow him. Elsworthy accordingly went off to the shop, where his errand-boys were waiting for the newspapers, and where Rosa lay upstairs, weeping, in a dark room, where her enraged aunt had shut her up. Mrs. Elsworthy had shut up the poor little pretty wretch, who might have been penitent under better guidance, but who by this time had lost what sense of shame and wrong her childish conscience was capable of in the stronger present sense of injury and resentment and longing to escape; but the angry aunt, though she could turn the key on poor Rosa’s unfortunate little person, could not shut in the piteous sobs which now and then sounded through and through the house, and which converted all the errand-boys without exception into indignant partisans of Rosa, and even moved the heart of Peter Hayles, who could hear them at the back window where he was making up Dr. Marjoribanks’s prescriptions. As the sense of injury waxed stronger and stronger in Rosa’s bosom, she availed herself, like any other irrational, irresponsible creature, of such means of revenging herself and annoying her keepers as occurred to her. “Nobody ever took no care of me,” sobbed Rosa. “I never had no father or mother. Oh, I wish I was dead!⁠—and nobody wouldn’t care!” These utterances, it may be imagined, went to the very heart of the errand-boys, who were collected in a circle, plotting how to release Rosa, when Elsworthy, mortified and furious, came back from his unsuccessful assault on the Curate. They scattered like a covey of little birds before the angry man, who tossed their papers at them, and then strode up the echoing stairs. “If you don’t hold your d⁠⸺⁠d tongue,” said Elsworthy, knocking furiously at Rosa’s door, “I’ll turn you to the door this instant, I will, by ⸻.” Nobody in Carlingford had ever before heard an oath issue from the respectable lips of the clerk of St. Roque’s. When he went down into the shop again, the outcries sank into frightened moans. Not much wonder that the entire neighbourhood became as indignant with Elsworthy as it ever had been with the Perpetual Curate. The husband and wife took up their positions in the shop after this, as far apart as was possible from each other, both resenting in silent fury the wrong which the world in general had done them. If Mrs. Elsworthy had dared, she would have exhausted her passion in abuse of everybody⁠—of the Curate for not being guilty, of her husband for supposing him to be so, and, to be sure, of Rosa herself, who was the cause of all. But Elsworthy was dangerous, not to be approached or spoken to. He went out about noon to see John Brown, and discuss with him the question of damages; but the occurrences which took place in his absence are not to be mixed up with the present narrative, which concerns Mr. Frank Wentworth’s visit to Lucy Wodehouse, and has nothing to do with ignoble hates or loves.

The Curate went rapidly on to the green door, which once more looked like a gate of paradise. He did not know in the least what he was going to do or say⁠—he was only conscious of a state of exaltation, a condition of mind which might precede great happiness or great misery, but had nothing in it of the common state of affairs in which people ask each other “How do you do?” Notwithstanding, the fact is, that when Lucy entered that dear familiar drawing-room, where every feature and individual expression of every piece of furniture was as well known to him as if they had been so many human faces, it was only “How do you do?” that the Curate found himself able to say. The two shook hands as demurely as if Lucy had indeed been, according to the deceptive representation of yesterday, as old as aunt Dora; and then she seated herself in her favourite chair, and tried to begin a little conversation about things in general. Even in these three days, nature and youth had done something for Lucy. She had slept and rested, and the unforeseen misfortune which had come in to distract her grief had roused all the natural strength that was in her. As she was a little nervous about this interview, not knowing what it might end in, Lucy thought it her duty to be as composed and self-commanding as possible, and, in order to avoid all dangerous and exciting subjects, began to talk of Wharfside.

“I have not heard anything for three or four days about the poor woman at No. 10,” she said; “I meant to have gone to see her today, but somehow one gets so selfish when⁠—when one’s mind is full of affairs of one’s own.”

“Yes,” said the Curate; “and speaking of that, I wanted to tell you how much comfort your letter had been to me. My head, too, has been very full of affairs of my own. I thought at one time that my friends were forsaking me. It was very good of you to write as you did.”

Upon which there followed another little pause. “Indeed the goodness was all on your side,” said Lucy, faltering. “If I had ever dreamt how much you were doing for us! but it all came upon me so suddenly. It is impossible ever to express in words one-half of the gratitude we owe you,” she said, with restrained enthusiasm. She looked up at him as she spoke with a little glow of natural fervour, which brought the colour to her cheek and the moisture to her eyes. She was not of the disposition to give either thanks or confidence by halves; and even the slight not unpleasant sense of danger which gave piquancy to this interview, made her resolute to express herself fully. She would not suffer herself to stint her gratitude because of the sweet suspicion which would not be quite silenced, that possibly Mr. Wentworth looked for something better than gratitude. Not for any consequences, however much they might be to be avoided, could she be shabby enough to refrain from due acknowledgment of devotion so great. Therefore, while the Perpetual Curate was doing all he could to remind himself of his condition, and to persuade himself that it would be utterly wrong and mean of him to speak, Lucy looked up at him, looked him in the face, with her blue eyes shining dewy and sweet through tears of gratitude and a kind of generous admiration; for, like every other woman, she felt herself exalted and filled with a delicious pride in seeing that the man of her unconscious choice had proved himself the best.

The Curate walked to the window, very much as Mr. Proctor had done, in the tumult and confusion of his heart, and came back again with what he had to say written clear on his face, without any possibility of mistake. “I must speak,” said the young man; “I have no right to speak, I know; if I had attained the height of self-sacrifice and self-denial, I might, I would be silent⁠—but it is impossible now.” He came to a break just then, looking at her to see what encouragement he had to go on; but as Lucy did nothing but listen and grow pale, he had to take his own way. “What I have to say is not anything new,” said the Curate, labouring a little in his voice, as was inevitable when affairs had come to such a crisis, “if I were not in the cruelest position possible to a man. I have only an empty love to lay at your feet; I tell it to you only because I am obliged⁠—because, after all, love is worth telling, even if it comes to nothing. I am not going to appeal to your generosity,” continued the young man, kneeling down at the table, not by way of kneeling to Lucy, but by way of bringing himself on a level with her, where she sat with her head bent down on her low chair, “or to ask you to bind yourself to a man who has nothing in the world but love to offer you; but after what has been for years, after all the hours I have spent here, I cannot⁠—part⁠—I cannot let you go⁠—without a word⁠—”