The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 42 (2/2)

And here he stopped short. He had not asked anything, so that Lucy, even had she been able, had nothing to answer; and as for the young lover himself, he seemed to have come to the limit of his eloquence. He kept waiting for a moment, gazing at her in breathless expectation of a response for which his own words had left no room. Then he rose in an indescribable tumult of disappointment and mortification⁠—unable to conclude that all was over, unable to keep silence, yet not knowing what to say.

“I have been obliged to close all the doors of advancement upon myself,” said the Curate, with a little bitterness; “I don’t know if you understand me. At this moment I have to deny myself the dearest privilege of existence. Don’t mistake me, Lucy,” he said, after another pause, coming back to her with humility, “I don’t venture to say that you would have accepted anything I had to offer; but this I mean, that to have a home for you now⁠—to have a life for you ready to be laid at your feet, whether you would have had it or not;⁠—what right have I to speak of such delights?” cried the young man. “It does not matter to you; and as for me, I have patience⁠—patience to console myself with⁠—”

Poor Lucy, though she was on the verge of tears, which nothing but the most passionate self-restraint could have kept in, could not help a passing sensation of amusement at these words. “Not too much of that either,” she said, softly, with a tremulous smile. “But patience carries the lilies of the saints,” said Lucy, with a touch of the sweet asceticism which had once been so charming to the young Anglican. It brought him back like a spell to the common ground on which they used to meet; it brought him back also to his former position on his knee, which was embarrassing to Lucy, though she had not the heart to draw back, nor even to withdraw her hand, which somehow happened to be in Mr. Wentworth’s way.

“I am but a man,” said the young lover. “I would rather have the roses of life⁠—but, Lucy, I am only a perpetual curate,” he continued, with her hand in his. Her answer was made in the most heartless and indifferent words. She let two big drops⁠—which fell like hail, though they were warmer than any summer rain⁠—drop out of her eyes, and she said, with lips that had some difficulty in enunciating that heartless sentiment, “I don’t see what it matters to me⁠—”

Which was true enough, though it did not sound encouraging; and it is dreadful to confess that, for a little while after, neither Skelmersdale, nor Wentworth, nor Mr. Proctor’s new rectory, nor the no-income of the Perpetual Curate of St. Roque’s, had the smallest place in the thoughts of either of these perfectly inconsiderate young people. For half an hour they were an Emperor and Empress seated upon two thrones, to which all the world was subject; and when at the end of that time they began to remember the world, it was but to laugh at it in their infinite youthful superiority. Then it became apparent that to remain in Carlingford, to work at “the district,” to carry out all the ancient intentions of well-doing which had been the first bond between them, was, after all, the life of lives;⁠—which was the state of mind they had both arrived at when Miss Wodehouse, who thought they had been too long together under the circumstances, and could not help wondering what Mr. Wentworth could be saying, came into the room, rather flurried in her own person. She thought Lucy must have been telling the Curate about Mr. Proctor and his hopes, and was, to tell the truth, a little curious how Mr. Wentworth would take it, and a little⁠—the very least⁠—ashamed of encountering his critical looks. The condition of mind into which Miss Wodehouse was thrown when she perceived the real state of affairs would be difficult to describe. She was very glad and very sorry, and utterly puzzled how they were to live; and underneath all these varying emotions was a sudden, half-ludicrous, half-humiliating sense of being cast into the shade, which made Mr. Proctor’s fiancée laugh and made her cry, and brought her down altogether off the temporary pedestal upon which she had stepped, not without a little feminine satisfaction. When a woman is going to be married, especially if that marriage falls later than usual, it is natural that she should expect, for that time at least, to be the first and most prominent figure in her little circle. But, alas! what chance could there be for a mild, dove-coloured bride of forty beside a creature of half her age, endued with all the natural bloom and natural interest of youth?

Miss Wodehouse could not quite make out her own feelings on the subject. “Don’t you think if you had waited a little it would have been wiser?” she said, in her timid way; and then kissed her young sister, and said, “I am so glad, my darling⁠—I am sure dear papa would have been pleased,” with a sob which brought back to Lucy the grief from which she had for the moment escaped. Under all the circumstances, however, it may well be supposed that it was rather hard upon Mr. Wentworth to recollect that he had engaged to return to luncheon with the Squire, and to prepare himself after this momentous morning’s work, to face all the complications of the family, where still Skelmersdale and Wentworth were hanging in the balance, and where the minds of his kith and kin were already too full of excitement to leave much room for another event. He went away reluctantly enough out of the momentary paradise where his Perpetual Curacy was a matter of utter indifference, if not a tender pleasantry, which rather increased than diminished the happiness of the moment⁠—into the ordinary daylight world, where it was a very serious matter, and where what the young couple would have to live upon became the real question to be considered. Mr. Wentworth met Wodehouse as he went out, which did not mend matters. The vagabond was loitering about in the garden, attended by one of Elsworthy’s errand-boys, with whom he was in earnest conversation, and stopped in his talk to give a sulky nod and “Good morning,” to which the Curate had no desire to respond more warmly than was necessary. Lucy was thinking of nothing but himself, and perhaps a little of the “great work” at Wharfside, which her father’s illness and death had interrupted; but Mr. Wentworth, who was only a man, remembered that Tom Wodehouse would be his brother-in-law with a distinct sensation of disgust, even in the moment of his triumph⁠—which is one instance of the perennial inequality between the two halves of mankind. He had to brace himself up to the encounter of all his people, while she had to meet nothing less delightful than her own dreams. This was how matters came to an issue in respect of Frank Wentworth’s personal happiness. His worldly affairs were all astray as yet, and he had not the most distant indication of any gleam of light dawning upon the horizon which could reconcile his duty and honour with good fortune and the delights of life. Meanwhile other discussions were going on in Carlingford, of vital importance to the two young people who had made up their minds to cast themselves upon Providence. And among the various conversations which were being carried on about the same moment in respect to Mr. Wentworth⁠—whose affairs, as was natural, were extensively canvassed in Grange Lane, as well as in other less exclusive quarters⁠—it would be wrong to omit a remarkable consultation which took place in the Rectory, where Mrs. Morgan sat in the midst of the great bouquets of the drawing-room carpet, making up her first matrimonial difficulty. It would be difficult to explain what influence the drawing-room carpet in the Rectory had on the fortunes of the Perpetual Curate; but when Mr. Wentworth’s friends come to hear the entire outs and ins of the business, it will be seen that it was not for nothing that Mr. Proctor covered the floor of that pretty apartment with roses and lilies half a yard long.