"I wonder what the Miss Wodehouses think of it," he said at last. "One would do a great deal to keep them from hearing such a thing; but I wonder how they are feeling about it," said Mr Proctor—and clearly declined to discuss the matter with Mrs Morgan, who was counsel for the defence. When the Rector's wife went to her own room to dress for dinner, it is very true that she had a good cry over her cup of tea. She was not only disappointed, but exasperated, in that impatient feminine nature of hers. Perhaps if she had been less sensitive, she would have had less of that redness in her face which was so great a trouble to Mrs Morgan. These two slow middle-aged men, without any intuitions, who were coming lumbering after her through all kind of muddles of evidence and argument, exasperated the more rapid woman. To be sure, they understood Greek plays a great deal better than she did; but she was penetrated with the liveliest impatience of their dulness all the same. Mrs Morgan, however, like most people who are in advance of their age, felt her utter impotence against that blank wall of dull resistance. She could not make them see into the heart of things as she did. She had to wait until they had attacked the question in the orthodox way of siege, and made gradual entrance by dint of hard labour. All she could do to console herself was, to shed certain hot tears of indignation and annoyance over her tea, which, however, was excellent tea, and did her good. Perhaps it was to show her sense of superiority, and that she did not feel herself vanquished, that, after that, she put on her new dress, which was very much too nice to be wasted upon Mr Proctor. As for Mr Leeson, who came in as usual just in time for dinner, having heard of Mr Proctor's arrival, she treated him with a blandness which alarmed the Curate. "I quite expected you, for we have the All-Souls pudding to-day," said the Rector's wife, and she smiled a smile which would have struck awe into the soul of any curate that ever was known in Carlingford.
CHAPTER XXXII.
It was the afternoon of the same day on which Mr Proctor arrived in Carlingford that Mr Wentworth received the little note from Miss Wodehouse which was so great a consolation to the Perpetual Curate. By that time he had begun to experience humiliations more hard to bear than anything he had yet known. He had received constrained greetings from several of his most cordial friends; his people in the district, all but Tom Burrows, looked askance upon him; and Dr Marjoribanks, who had never taken kindly to the young Anglican, had met him with satirical remarks in his dry Scotch fashion, which were intolerable to the Curate. In these circumstances, it was balm to his soul to have his sympathy once more appealed to, and by those who were nearest to his heart. The next day was that appointed for Mr Wodehouse's funeral, to which Mr Wentworth had been looking forward with a little excitement—wondering, with indignant misery, whether the covert insults he was getting used to would be repeated even over his old friend's grave. It was while this was in his mind that he received Miss Wodehouse's little note. It was very hurriedly written, on the terrible black-edged paper which, to such a simple soul as Miss Wodehouse, it was a kind of comfort to use in the moment of calamity. "Dear Mr Wentworth," it said, "I am in great difficulty, and don't know what to do: come, I beg of you, and tell me what is best. My dear Lucy insists upon going to-morrow, and I can't cross her when her heart is breaking, and I don't know what to do. Please to come, if it were only for a moment. Dear, dear papa, and all of us, have always had such confidence in you!" Mr Wentworth was seated, very disconsolate, in his study when this appeal came to him: he was rather sick of the world and most things in it; a sense of wrong eclipsed the sunshine for the moment, and obscured the skies; but it was comforting to be appealed to—to have his assistance and his protection sought once more. He took his hat immediately and went up the sunny road, on which there was scarcely a passenger visible, to the closed-up house, which stood so gloomy and irresponsive in the sunshine. Mr Wodehouse had not been a man likely to attract any profound love in his lifetime, or sense of loss when he was gone; but yet it was possible to think, with the kindly, half-conscious delusion of nature, that had he been living, he would have known better; and the Curate went into the darkened drawing-room, where all the shutters were closed, except those of the little window in the corner, where Lucy's work-table stood, and where a little muffled sunshine stole in through the blind. Everything was in terribly good order in the room. The two sisters had been living in their own apartments, taking their forlorn meals in the little parlour which communicated with their sleeping chambers, during this week of darkness; and nobody had come into the drawing-room except the stealthy housemaid, who contemplated herself and her new mourning for an hour at a stretch in the great mirror without any interruption, while she made "tidy" the furniture which nobody now disturbed. Into this sombre apartment Miss Wodehouse came gliding, like a gentle ghost, in her black gown. She too, like John and the housemaid and everybody about, walked and talked under her breath. There was now no man in the house entitled to disturb those proprieties with which a female household naturally hedges round all the great incidents of life; and the affairs of the family were all carried on in a whisper, in accordance with the solemnity of the occasion—a circumstance which had naturally called the ghost of a smile to the Curate's countenance as he followed John up-stairs. Miss Wodehouse herself, though she was pale, and spent half her time, poor soul! in weeping, and had, besides, living encumbrances to trouble her helpless path, did not look amiss in her black gown. She came in gliding without any noise, but with a little expectation in her gentle countenance. She was one of the people whom experience never makes any wiser; and she could not help hoping to be delivered from her troubles this time, as so often before, as soon as she should have transferred them to somebody else's shoulders, and taken "advice."
"Lucy has made up her mind that we are to go to-morrow," said Miss Wodehouse, drying her tears. "It was not the custom in my young days, Mr Wentworth, and I am sure I don't know what to say; but I can't bear to cross her, now that she has nobody but me. She was always the best child in the world," said the poor lady—"far more comfort to poor dear papa than I ever could be; but to hear her talk you would think that she had never done anything. And oh, Mr Wentworth, if that was all I should not mind; but we have always kept things a secret from her; and now I have had a letter, and I don't know what it is possible to do."
"A letter from your brother?" asked Mr Wentworth, eagerly.
"From Tom," said the elder sister; "poor, poor Tom! I am sure papa forgave him at the last, though he did not say anything. Oh, Mr Wentworth, he was such a nice boy once; and if Lucy only knew, and I could summon up the courage to tell her, and he would change his ways, as he promised—don't think me fickle or changeable, or look as if I didn't know my own mind," cried poor Miss Wodehouse, with a fresh flow of tears; "but oh, Mr Wentworth, if he only would change his ways, as he promised, think what a comfort it would be to us to have him at home!"
"Yes," said the Curate, with a little bitterness. Here was another instance of the impunities of wickedness. "I think it very likely indeed that you will have him at home," said Mr Wentworth—"almost certain; the wonder is that he went away. Will you tell me where he dates his letter from? I have a curiosity to know."
"You are angry," said the anxious sister. "Oh, Mr Wentworth, I know he does not deserve anything else, but you have always been so kind. I put his letter in my pocket to show you—at least, I am sure I intended to put it in my pocket. We have scarcely been in this room since—since—" and here Miss Wodehouse broke down, and had to take a little time to recover. "I will go and get the letter," she said, as at last she regained her voice, and hurried away through the partial darkness with her noiseless step, and the long black garments which swept noiselessly over the carpet. Mr Wentworth for his part went to the one window which was only veiled by a blind, and comforted himself a little in the sunshine. The death atmosphere weighed upon the young man and took away his courage. If he was only wanted to pave the way for the reception of the rascally brother for whose sins he felt convinced he was himself suffering, the consolation of being appealed to would be sensibly lessened, and it was hard to have no other way of clearing himself than by criminating Lucy's brother, and bringing dishonour upon her name. While he waited for Miss Wodehouse's return, he stood by Lucy's table, with very little of the feeling which had once prompted him to fold his arms so caressingly with an impulse of tenderness upon the chair which stood beside it. He was so much absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not hear at first the sound of a hesitating hand upon the door, which at length, when repeated, went to the Curate's heart. He turned round rapidly, and saw Lucy standing on the threshold in her profound mourning. She was very pale, and her blue eyes looked large and full beyond their natural appearance, dilated with tears and watching; and when they met those of Mr Wentworth, they filled full like flower-cups with dew; but besides this Lucy made no demonstration of her grief. After that momentary hesitation at the door, she came in and gave the Curate her hand. Perhaps it was a kind of defiance, perhaps a natural yearning, which drew her out of her chamber when she heard of his presence; both sentiments sprang out of the same feeling; and the Curate, when he looked at her, bethought himself of the only moment when he had been able to imagine that Lucy loved him; that moment by her father's bedside, of which the impression had been dulled since then by a crowd of events, when she looked with such reproach and disappointment and indignation into his face.
"I heard you were here," said Lucy, "and I thought you might think it strange not to see us both." And then she paused, perhaps finding it less easy than she thought to explain why she had come. "We ought to thank you, Mr Wentworth, for your kindness, though I—"
"You were angry with me," said the Curate. "I know you thought me heartless; but a man must bear to be misconceived when he has duty to do," the young clergyman added, with a swelling heart. Lucy did not know the fuller significance of his words; and there was a loftiness in them which partly affronted her, and set all her sensitive woman-pride in arms against him.