"I am much flattered by your good opinion. What was the dreadful story?" asked Mr Wentworth, looking at her with careless eyes. They were just opposite Elsworthy's shop, and could almost hear what he was saying, as he stood in the midst of his little group of listeners, talking loud and vehemently. The Perpetual Curate looked calmly at him across the road, and turned again to Mrs Morgan, repeating his question, "What was the dreadful story?—one gets used to romances," he said, with a composure too elaborate to be real; but Mrs Morgan did not think of that.
"If you don't care about it, I need not say anything," said the Rector's wife, who could not help feeling affronted. "But I am so sorry that Mr Morgan and you don't get on," she continued, after a little pause. "I have no right to speak; but I take an interest in everything that belongs to the parish. If you would put a little confidence in my husband, things might go on better; but, in the mean time, I thought I might say to you, on my own account, that I had heard this scandal, and that I don't believe in it. If you do not understand my motive I can't help it," said the Rector's wife, who was now equally ready for friendship or for battle.
"Thanks; I understand what you mean," said Mr Wentworth, who had come to himself. "But will you tell me what it is you don't believe in?" he asked, with a smile which Mrs Morgan did not quite comprehend.
"I will tell you," she said, with a little quiet exasperation. "I don't think you would risk your prospects, and get yourself into trouble, and damage your entire life, for the sake of any girl, however pretty she might be. Men don't do such things for women nowadays, even when it is a worthy object," said the disappointed optimist. "And I believe you are a great deal more sensible, Mr Wentworth." There was just that tone of mingled approval and contempt in this speech which a woman knows how to deliver herself of without any appearance of feeling; and which no young man, however blasé, can hear with composure.
"Perhaps not," he said, with a little heat and a rising colour. "I am glad you think me so sensible." And then there ensued a pause, upon the issue of which depended the question of peace or war between these two. Mr Wentworth's good angel, perhaps, dropped softly through the dusky air at that moment, and jogged his perverse charge with the tip of a celestial wing. "And yet there might be women in the world for whom—" said the Curate; and stopped again. "I daresay you are not anxious to know my sentiments on the subject," he continued, with a little laugh. "I am sorry you think so badly—I mean so well of me."
"I don't think badly of you," said Mrs Morgan, hastily. "Thank you for walking with me; and whatever happens, remember that I for one don't believe a word of it," she said, holding out her hand. After this little declaration of friendship, the Rector's wife returned to the Rectory, where her husband was waiting for her, more than ever prepared to stand up for Mr Wentworth. She went back to the drawing-room, forgetting all about the carpet, and poured out the tea with satisfaction, and made herself very agreeable to Mr Finial, the architect, who had come to talk over the restorations. In that moment of stimulation she forgot all her experience of her husband's puzzled looks, of the half-comprehension with which he looked at her, and the depths of stubborn determination which were far beyond the reach of her hastier and more generous spirit, and so went on with more satisfaction and gaiety than she had felt possible for a long time, beating her drums and blowing her trumpets, to the encounter in which her female forces were so confident of victory.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Mr Wentworth went upon his way, after he had parted from Mrs Morgan, with a moment's gratitude; but he had not gone half-a-dozen steps before that amiable sentiment yielded to a sense of soreness and vexation. He had almost acknowledged that he was conscious of the slander against which he had made up his mind to present a blank front of unconsciousness and passive resistance, and he was angry with himself for his susceptibility to this unexpected voice of kindness. He was going home, but he did not care for going home. Poor Mrs Hadwin's anxious looks of suspicion had added to the distaste with which he thought of encountering again the sullen shabby rascal to whom he had given shelter. It was Saturday night, and he had still his sermon to prepare for the next day; but the young man was in a state of disgust with all the circumstances of his lot, and could not make up his mind to go in and address himself to his work as he ought to have done. Such a sense of injustice and cruelty as possessed him was not likely to promote composition, especially as the pulpit addresses of the Curate of St Roque's were not of a declamatory kind. To think that so many years' work could be neutralised in a day by a sudden breath of scandal, made him not humble or patient, but fierce and resentful. He had been in Wharfside that afternoon, and felt convinced that even the dying woman at No. 10 Prickett's Lane had heard of Rosa Elsworthy; and he saw, or imagined he saw, many a distrustful inquiring glance thrown at him by people to whom he had been a kind of secondary Providence. Naturally the mere thought of the failing allegiance of the "district" went to Mr Wentworth's heart. When he turned round suddenly from listening to a long account of one poor family's distresses, and saw Tom Burrows, the gigantic bargeman, whose six children the Curate had baptised in a lump, and whose baby had been held at the font by Lucy Wodehouse herself, looking at him wistfully with rude affection, and something that looked very much like pity, it is impossible to describe the bitterness that welled up in the mind of the Perpetual Curate. Instead of leaving Wharfside comforted as he usually did, he came away wounded and angry, feeling to its full extent the fickleness of popular sympathy. And when he came into Grange Lane and saw the shutters closed, and Mr Wodehouse's green door shut fast, as if never more to open, all sources of consolation seemed to be shut against him. Even the habit he had of going into Elsworthy's to get his newspaper, and to hear what talk might be current in Carlingford, contributed to the sense of utter discomfort and wretchedness which overwhelmed him. Men in other positions have generally to consult the opinion of their equals only; but all sorts of small people can plant thorns in the path of a priest who has given himself with fervour to the duties of his office. True enough, such clouds blow by, and sometimes leave behind a sky clearer than before; but that result is doubtful, and Mr Wentworth was not of the temper to comfort himself with philosophy. He felt ingratitude keenly, as men do at eight-and-twenty, even when they have made up their minds that gratitude is a delusion; and still more keenly, with deep resentment and indignation, he felt the horrible doubt which had diffused itself around him, and seemed to be looking at him out of everybody's eyes. In such a state of mind one bethinks one's self of one's relations—those friends not always congenial, but whom one looks to instinctively, when one is young, in the crisis of life. He knocked at his aunts' door almost without knowing it, as he went down Grange Lane, after leaving Mrs Morgan, with vague sentences of his sermon floating in his mind through all the imbroglio of other thoughts. Even aunt Dora's foolish affection might have been a little comfort at the moment, and he could not but be a little curious to know whether they had heard Elsworthy's story, and what the patronesses of Skelmersdale thought of the matter. Somehow, just then, in the midst of his distresses, a vision of Skelmersdale burst upon the Perpetual Curate like a glimpse of a better world. If he could but escape there out of all this sickening misconception and ingratitude—if he could but take Lucy into his protecting arms, and carry her away far from the clouds that were gathering over her path as well as his own. The thought found vent in an impatient long-drawn sigh, and was then expelled contemptuously from the young man's bosom. If a hundred Skelmersdales were in his power, here, where his honour had been attacked, it was necessary to remain, in the face of all obstacles, till it was cleared.
The Miss Wentworths had just come up to the drawing-room after dinner when their nephew entered. As for Miss Dora, she had seated herself by the window, which was open, and, with her light little curls fluttering upon her cheek, was watching a tiny puff of smoke by the side of the great laurel, which indicated the spot occupied at this moment by Jack and his cigar. "Dear fellow, he does enjoy the quiet," she said, with a suppressed little sniff of emotion. "To think we should be in such a misery about poor dear Frank, and have Jack, about whom we have all been so unbelieving, sent to us for a consolation. My poor brother will be so happy," said Miss Dora, almost crying at the thought. She was under the influence of this sentiment when the Curate entered. It was perhaps impossible for Mr Wentworth to present himself before his three aunts at the present crisis without a certain consciousness in his looks; and it was well that it was twilight, and he could not read distinctly all that was written in their countenances. Miss Cecilia held out her lovely old hand to him first of all. She said, "How do you do, Frank?" which was not very original, but yet counted for a good deal in the silence. When he came up to her, she offered him her sweet old cheek with a look of pity which touched, and yet affronted, the Perpetual Curate. He thought it was the wisest way to accept the challenge at once.
"It is very good of you, but you need not be sorry for me," he said, as he sat down by her. And then there was a little pause—an awful pause; for Miss Wentworth had no further observations to offer, and Miss Dora, who had risen up hastily, dropped into her chair again in a disconsolate condition, when she saw that her nephew did not take any notice of her. The poor little woman sat down with miserable sensations, and did not find the comfort she hoped for in contemplation of the smoke of Jack's cigar. After all, it was Frank who was the original owner of Miss Dora's affections. When she saw him, as she thought, in a state of guilt and trouble, received with grim silence by the dreaded Leonora, the poor lady began to waver greatly, divided between a longing to return to her old allegiance, and a certain pride in the new bonds which bound her to so great a sinner as Jack. She could not help feeling the distinction of having such a reprobate in her hands. But the sight of Frank brought back old habits, and Miss Dora felt at her wits' end, and could not tell what to do.