"I don't think Mr Proctor will stay," said Mr Morgan; "and if he does stay, I believe he is a friend of Mr Wentworth's." It was only after he had said this that the Rector perceived the meaning of the words he had uttered; then, in his confusion and vexation, he got up hastily from the table, and upset the inkstand in all the embarrassment of the moment. "Of course that is all the greater reason for having his assistance," said Mr Morgan, in his perplexity; "we are all friends of Mr Wentworth. Will you have the goodness to ring the bell? There are few things more painful than to take steps against a brother clergyman, if one did not hope it would be for his benefit in the end. Oh, never mind the table. Be so good as to ring the bell again—louder, please."
"There aint nothing equal to blotting-paper, sir," said Elsworthy, eagerly. "With a bit o' blotting-paper I'd undertake to rub out ink-stains out o' the finest carpet—if you'll permit me. It aint but a small speck, and it'll be gone afore you could look round. It's twenty times better nor lemon-juice, or them poisonous salts as you're always nervous of leaving about. Look you here, sir, if it aint a-sopping up beautiful. There aint no harm done as your respected lady could be put out about; and I'll take the list with me, if you please, to show to my wife, as is a-breaking her heart at home, and can't believe as we'll ever get justice. She says as how the quality always takes a gentleman's part against us poor folks, but that aint been my experience. Don't you touch the carpet, Thomas—there aint a speck to be seen when the blotting-paper's cleared away. I'll go home, not to detain you no more, sir, and cheer up the poor heart as is a-breaking," said Elsworthy, getting up from his knees where he had been operating upon the carpet. He had got in his hand the list of names which Mr Morgan had put down as referees in this painful business, and it dawned faintly upon the Rector for the moment that he himself was taking rather an undignified position as Elsworthy's partisan.
"I have no objection to your showing it to your wife," said Mr Morgan; "but I shall be much displeased if I hear any talk about it, Elsworthy; and I hope it is not revenge you are thinking of, which is a very unchristian sentiment," said the Rector, severely, "and not likely to afford comfort either to her or to you."
"No, sir, nothing but justice," said Elsworthy, hoarsely, as he backed out of the room. Notwithstanding this statement, it was with very unsatisfactory sensations that Mr Morgan went up-stairs. He felt somehow as if the justice which Elsworthy demanded, and which he himself had solemnly declared to be pursuing the Curate of St Roque's, was wonderfully like revenge. "All punishment must be more or less vindictive," he said to himself as he went up-stairs; but that fact did not make him more comfortable as he went into his wife's drawing-room, where he felt more like a conspirator and assassin than an English Rector in broad daylight, without a mystery near him, had any right to feel. This sensation confused Mr Morgan much, and made him more peremptory in his manner than ever. As for Mr Proctor, who was only a spectator, and felt himself on a certain critical eminence, the suggestion that occurred to his mind was, that he had come in at the end of a quarrel, and that the conjugal firmament was still in a state of disturbance: which idea acted upon some private projects in the hidden mind of the Fellow of All-Souls, and produced a state of feeling little more satisfactory than that of the Rector of Carlingford.
"I hope Mr Proctor is going to stay with us for a day or two," said Mrs Morgan. "I was just saying it must look like coming home to come to the house he used to live in, and which was even furnished to his own taste," said the Rector's wife, shooting a little arrow at the late Rector, of which that good man was serenely unconscious. All this time, while they had been talking, Mrs Morgan had scarcely been able to keep from asking who could possibly have suggested such a carpet. Mr Proctor's chair was placed on the top of one of the big bouquets, which expanded its large foliage round him with more than Eastern prodigality—but he was so little conscious of any culpability of his own in the matter, that he had referred his indignant hostess to one of the leaves as an illustration of the kind of diaper introduced into the new window which had lately been put up in the chapel of All-Souls. "A naturalistic treatment, you know," said Mr Proctor, with the utmost serenity; "and some people objected to it," added the unsuspicious man.
"I should have objected very strongly," said Mrs Morgan, with a little flush. "If you call that naturalistic treatment, I consider it perfectly out of place in decoration—of every kind—" Mr Proctor happened to be looking at her at the moment, and it suddenly occurred to him that Miss Wodehouse never got red in that uncomfortable way, which was the only conclusion he drew from the circumstance, having long ago forgotten that any connection had ever existed between himself and the carpet on the drawing-room in Carlingford Rectory. He addressed his next observation to Mr Morgan, who had just come in.
"I saw Mr Wodehouse's death in the 'Times,'" said Mr Proctor, "and I thought the poor young ladies might feel—at least they might think it a respect—or, at all events, it would be a satisfaction to one's self," said the late Rector, who had got into a mire of explanation. "Though he was far from being a young man, yet having a young daughter like Miss Lucy—"
"Poor Lucy!" said Mr Morgan. "I hope that wretched fellow, young Wentworth"—and here the Rector came to a dead stop, and felt that he had brought the subject most to be avoided head and shoulders into the conversation, as was natural to an embarrassed man. The consequence was that he got angry, as might have been expected. "My dear, you must not look at me as you do. I have just been hearing all the evidence. No unbiassed mind could possibly come to any other decision," said Mr Morgan, with exasperation. Now that he had committed himself, he thought it was much the best thing to go in for it wholly, without half measures, which was certainly the most straightforward way.
"What has happened to Wentworth?" said Mr Proctor. "He is a young man for whom I have a great regard. Though he is so much younger than I am, he taught me some lessons while I was in Carlingford which I shall never forget. If he is in any trouble that I can help him in, I shall be very glad to do it, both for his sake and for—" Mr Proctor slurred over the end of his sentence a little, and the others were occupied with their own difficulties, and did not take very much notice—for it was difficult to state fully the nature and extent of Mr Wentworth's enormities after such a declaration of friendship. "I met him on my way here," said the Fellow of All-Souls, "not looking quite as he used to do. I supposed it might be Mr Wodehouse's death, perhaps." All Mr Proctor's thoughts ran in that channel of Mr Wodehouse's death, which, after all, though sad enough, was not so great an event to the community in general as the late Rector seemed to suppose.
It was Mrs Morgan at length who took heart to explain to Mr Proctor the real state of affairs. "He has been a very good clergyman for five years," said Mrs Morgan; "he might behave foolishly, you know, about Wharfside, but then that was not his fault so much as the fault of the Rector's predecessors. I am sure I beg your pardon, Mr Proctor—I did not mean that you were to blame," said the Rector's wife; "but, notwithstanding all the work he has done, and the consistent life he has led, there is nobody in Carlingford who is not quite ready to believe that he has run away with Rosa Elsworthy—a common little girl without any education, or a single idea in her head. I suppose she is what you would call pretty," said the indignant woman. "Everybody is just as ready to believe that he is guilty as if he were a stranger or a bad character." Mrs Morgan stopped in an abrupt manner, because her quick eyes perceived a glance exchanged between the two gentlemen. Mr Proctor had seen a good deal of the world in his day, as he was fond of saying now and then to his intimate friends: and he had learned at the university and other places that a girl who is "what you would call pretty," counts for a great deal in the history of a young man, whether she has any ideas in her head or not. He did not, any more than the people of Carlingford, pronounce at once on a priori evidence that Mr Wentworth must be innocent. The Curate's "consistent life" did not go for much in the opinion of the middle-aged Fellow of All-Souls, any more than of the less dignified populace. He said, "Dear me, dear me!" in a most perplexed and distressed tone, while Mrs Morgan kept looking at him; and looked very much as if he were tempted to break forth into lamentations over human nature, as Mr Morgan himself had done.