The Perpetual Curate

by Mrs. Oliphant

"Stuff!" cried the Squire, testily. "Perhaps you will speak to the cook about these messes she insists on sending up to disgust one, and leave me to take care of my own health. Don't touch that dish, Frank; it's poison. I am glad Gerald is not here: he'd think we never had a dinner without that confounded mixture. And then the wonder is that one can't eat!" said Mr Wentworth, in a tone which spread consternation round the table. Mrs Wentworth secretly put her handkerchief to her eyes behind the great cover, which had not yet been removed; and one of the girls dashed in violently to the rescue, of course making everything worse.

"Why did not Gerald and Louisa come to dinner?" cried the ignorant sister. "Surely, when they knew Frank had come, they would have liked to be here. How very odd it was of you not to ask them, papa! they always do come when anybody has arrived. Why aren't they here to-night?"

"Because they don't choose to come," said the Squire, abruptly. "If Gerald has reasons for staying away from his father's house, what is that to you? Butterflies," said Mr Wentworth, looking at them in their pretty dresses, as they sat regarding him with dismay, "that don't understand any reason for doing anything except liking it or not liking it. I daresay by this time your sister knows better."

"My sister is married, papa," said Letty, with her saucy look.

"I advise you to get married too, and learn what life is like," said the savage Squire; and conversation visibly flagged after this effort. When the ladies got safely into the drawing-room, they gathered into a corner to consult over it. They were all naturally anxious about him after his "attack."

"Don't you remember he was just like this before it came on?" said Mrs Wentworth, nervously; "so cross, and finding fault with the made dishes. Don't you think I might send over a message to Dr Small—not to come on purpose, you know, but just as if it were a call in passing?"

But the girls both agreed this would make matters worse.

"It must be something about Jack," they both said in a breath, in a kind of awe of their elder brother, of whom they had a very imperfect knowledge. "And it seems we never are to have a chance of a word with Frank!" cried Letty, who was indignant and exasperated. But at least it was a consolation that "the boys" were no better off. All next day Cuthbert and Guy hung about in the vain hope of securing the company and attention of the visitor. He was at the Rectory the whole morning, sometimes with Gerald, sometimes with Louisa, as the scouts of the family, consisting of a variety of brothers, little and big, informed the anxious girls. And Louisa was seen to cry on one of these occasions; and Gerald looked cross, said one little spy, whereupon he had his ears boxed, and was dismissed from the service. "As if Gerald ever looked anything but a saint!" said the younger sister, who was an advanced Anglican. Letty, however, holding other views, confuted this opinion strongly: "When one thinks of a saint, it is aunt Leonora one thinks of," said this profane young woman. "I'll tell you what Gerald looks like—something just half-way between a conqueror and a martyr. I think, of all the men I ever saw, he is my hero," said Letty, meditatively. The youngest Miss Wentworth was not exactly of this latter opinion, but she did not contradict her sister. They were kept in a state of watchfulness all day, but Frank's mission remained a mystery which they could not penetrate; and in the evening Gerald alone made his appearance at the hall to dinner, explaining that Louisa had a headache. Now Louisa's headaches were not unfrequent, but they were known to improve in the prospect of going out to dinner. On the whole, the matter was wrapt in obscurity, and the Wentworth household could not explain it. The sisters sat up brushing their hair, and looking very pretty in their dressing-gowns, with their bright locks (for the Wentworth hair was golden-brown of a Titian hue) over their shoulders, discussing the matter till it was long past midnight; but they could make nothing of it, and the only conclusion they came to was, that their two clergymen brothers were occupied in negotiating with the Squire about some secret not known to the rest of the family, but most probably concerning Jack. Jack was almost unknown to his sisters, and awoke no very warm anxiety in their minds; so they went to sleep at last in tolerable quiet, concluding that whatever mystery there was concerned only the first-born and least loved of the house.

While the girls pursued these innocent deliberations, and reasoned themselves into conviction, the Squire too sat late—much later than usual. He had gone with Frank to the library, and sat there in half-stupefied quietness, which the Curate could not see without alarm, and from which he roused himself up now and then to wander off into talk, which always began with Gerald, and always came back to his own anxieties and his disappointed hopes in his eldest son. "If Jack had been the man he ought to have been, I'd have telegraphed for him, and he'd have managed it all," said the Squire, and then relapsed once more into silence. "For neither you nor I are men of the world, Frank," he would resume again, after a pause of half an hour, revealing pitifully how his mind laboured under the weight of this absorbing thought. The Curate sat up with him in the dimly-lighted library, feeling the silence and the darkness to his heart. He could not assist his father in those dim ranges of painful meditation. Grieved as he was, he could not venture to compare his own distress with the bitterness of the Squire, disappointed in all his hopes and in the pride of his heart; and then the young man saw compensations and heroisms in Gerald's case which were invisible to the unheroic eyes of Mr Wentworth, who looked at it entirely from a practical point of view, and regarded with keen mortification an event which would lay all the affairs of the Wentworths open to general discussion, and invite the eye of the world to a renewed examination of his domestic skeletons. Everything had been hushed and shut up in the Hall for at least an hour, when the Squire got up at last and lighted his candle, and held out his hand to his son—"This isn't a very cheerful visit for you, Frank," he said; "but we'll try again to-morrow, and have one other talk with Gerald. Couldn't you read up some books on the subject, or think of something new to say to him? God bless my soul! if I were as young and as much accustomed to talking as you are, I'd surely find out some argument," said the Squire, with a momentary spark of temper, which made his son feel more comfortable about him. "It's your business to convince a man when he's wrong. We'll try Gerald once more, and perhaps something may come of it; and as for Jack—" Here the Squire paused, and shook his head, and let go his son's hand. "I suppose it's sitting up so late that makes one feel so cold and wretched, and as if one saw ghosts," said Mr Wentworth. "Don't stay here any longer, and take care of the candles. I ought to have been in bed two hours ago. Good-night."

And as he walked away, the Curate could not but observe what an aged figure it looked, moving with a certain caution to the door. The great library was so dim that the light of the candle which the Squire carried in his hand was necessary to reveal his figure clearly, and there was no mistaking his air of age and feebleness. The Curate's thoughts were not very agreeable when he was left by himself in the half-lighted room. His imagination jumped to a picture very possible, but grievous to think of—Jack seated in his father's place, and "the girls" and the little children turned out upon the world. In such a case, who would be their protector and natural guardian? Not Gerald, who was about to divest himself of ties still closer and more sacred. The Curate lit his candle too, and went hastily to his room when that thought came upon him. There might be circumstances still more hopeless and appalling than the opposition of a rector or the want of a benefice. He preferred to return to his anxiety about Gerald, and to put away that thought, as he went hurriedly up-stairs.