The Perpetual Curate

by Mrs. Oliphant

"No," said Miss Wodehouse; "but my dear father was a business man, Mr Wentworth, and I feel quite sure—quite—"

"Yes," said the Perpetual Curate; "nor of the nature of his property, perhaps?" added the worldly-minded young man whom poor Miss Wodehouse had chosen for her adviser. It was more than the gentle woman could bear.

"Oh, Mr Wentworth, you know I am not one to understand," cried the poor lady. "You ask me questions, but you never tell me what you think I should do. If it were only for myself, I would not mind, but I have to act for Lucy," said the elder sister, suddenly sitting upright and drying her tears. "Papa, I am sure, did what was best for us," she said, with a little gentle dignity, which brought the Curate back to his senses; "but oh, Mr Wentworth, look at the letter, and tell me, for my sister's sake, what am I to do?"

The Curate went to the window, from which the sunshine was stealing away, to consider the subject; but he did not seem to derive much additional wisdom from that sacred spot, where Lucy's work-table stood idle. "We must wait and see," he said to himself. When he came back to Miss Wodehouse, and saw the question still in her eyes, it only brought back his impatience. "My dear Miss Wodehouse, instead of speculating about what is to happen, it would be much better to prepare your sister for the discovery she must make to-morrow," said Mr Wentworth; "I cannot give any other advice, for my part. I think it is a great pity that you have kept it concealed so long. I beg your pardon for speaking so abruptly, but I am afraid you don't know all the trouble that is before you. We are all in a great deal of trouble," said the Perpetual Curate, with a little unconscious solemnity. "I can't say I see my way through it; but you ought to prepare her—to see—her brother." He said the words with a degree of repugnance which he could not conceal, and which wounded his companion's tender heart.

"He was so different when he was young," said Miss Wodehouse, with a suppressed sob—"he was a favourite everywhere. You would not have looked so if you had known him then. Oh, Mr Wentworth, promise me that you will not turn your back upon him if he comes home, after all your kindness. I will tell Lucy how much you have done for him," said Miss Wodehouse. She was only half-conscious of her own gentle artifice. She took the Curate's hand in both her own before he left her, and said it was such a comfort to have his advice to rely upon; and she believed what she said, though Mr Wentworth himself knew better. The poor lady sat down in Lucy's chair, and had a cry at her ease after he went away. She was to tell Lucy—but how? and she sat pondering this hard question till all the light had faded out of the room, and the little window which was not shuttered dispersed only a grey twilight through the empty place. The lamp, meantime, had been lighted in the little parlour where Lucy sat, very sad, in her black dress, with 'In Memoriam' on the table by her, carrying on a similar strain in her heart. She was thinking of the past, so many broken scenes of which kept flashing up before her, all bright with indulgent love and tenderness—and she was thinking of the next day, when she was to see all that remained of her good father laid in his grave. He was not very wise nor remarkable among men, but he had been the tenderest father to the child of his old age; and in her heart she was praying for him still, pausing now and then to think whether it was right. The tears were heavy in her young eyes, but they were natural tears, and Lucy had no more thought that there was in the world anything sadder than sorrow, or that any complications lay in her individual lot, than the merest child in Prickett's Lane. She thought of going back to the district, all robed and invested in the sanctity of her grief—she thought it was to last for ever, as one has the privilege of thinking when one is young; and it was to this young saint, tender towards all the world, ready to pity everybody, and to save a whole race, if that had been possible, that Miss Wodehouse went in, heavy and burdened, with her tale of miserable vice, unkindness, estrangement. How was it possible to begin? Instead of beginning, poor Miss Wodehouse, overpowered by her anxieties and responsibilities, was taken ill and fainted, and had to be carried to bed. Lucy would not let her talk when she came to herself; and so the only moment of possible preparation passed away, and the event itself, which one of them knew nothing of, and the other did not understand, came in its own person, without any avant-couriers, to open Lucy's eyes once for all.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Mr Wentworth had to go into Carlingford on some business when he left Miss Wodehouse; and as he went home again, having his head full of so many matters, he forgot for the moment what most immediately concerned himself, and was close upon Elsworthy's shop, looking into the window, before he thought of it. Elsworthy himself was standing behind the counter, with a paper in his hand, from which he was expounding something to various people in the shop. It was getting late, and the gas was lighted, which threw the interior into very bright relief to Mr Wentworth outside. The Curate was still only a young man, though he was a clergyman, and his movements were not always guided by reason or sound sense. He walked into the shop, almost before he was aware what he was doing. The people were inconsiderable people enough—cronies of Elsworthy—but they were people who had been accustomed to look up very reverentially to the Curate of St Roque's and Mr Wentworth was far from being superior to their disapproval. There was a very visible stir among them as he entered, and Elsworthy came to an abrupt stop in his elucidations, and thrust the paper he had been reading into a drawer. Dead and sudden silence followed the entrance of the Curate. Peter Hayles, the druggist, who was one of the auditors, stole to the door with intentions of escape, and the women, of whom there were two or three, looked alarmed, not knowing what might come of it. As for Mr Wentworth, there was only one thing possible for him to say. "Have you heard anything of Rosa, Elsworthy?" he asked, with great gravity, fixing his eyes upon the man's face. The question seemed to ring into all the corners. Whether it was innocence or utter abandonment nobody could tell, and the spectators held their breath for the answer. Elsworthy, for his part, was as much taken by surprise as his neighbours. He grew very pale and livid in his sudden excitement, and lost his voice, and stood staring at the Curate like a man struck dumb. Perhaps Mr Wentworth got bolder when he saw the effect he had produced. He repeated the question, looking towards poor Mrs Elsworthy, who had jumped from her husband's side when he came in. The whole party looked like startled conspirators to Mr Wentworth's eyes, though he had not the least idea what they had been doing. "Have you heard anything of Rosa?" he asked again; and everybody looked at Elsworthy, as if he were the guilty man, and had suborned the rest; which, indeed, in one sense, was not far from being the case.

When Elsworthy came to himself, he gave Mr Wentworth a sidelong dangerous look. "No, sir—nothing," said Rosa's uncle. "Them as has hidden her has hidden her well. I didn't expect to hear not yet," said Elsworthy. Though Mr Wentworth did not know what he meant, his little audience in the shop did, and showed, by the slightest murmur in the world, their conviction that the arrow had gone home, which naturally acted like a spur upon the Curate, who was not the wisest man in the world.

"I am very sorry to see you in so much distress," said the young man, looking at Mrs Elsworthy's red eyes, "but I trust things will turn out much better than you imagine. If I can do anything to help you, let me know," said Mr Wentworth. Perhaps it was foolish to say so much, knowing what he did, but unfortunately prudence was not the ruling principle at that moment in the Curate's soul.

"I was a-thinking of letting you know, sir," said the clerk of St Roque's, with deadly meaning; "leastways not me, but them as has taken me by the hand. There's every prospect as it'll all be known afore long," said Elsworthy, pushing his wife aside and following Mr Wentworth, with a ghastly caricature of his old obsequiousness, to the door. "There's inquiries a-being made as was never known to fail. For one thing, I've written to them as knows a deal about the movements of a party as is suspected—not to say as I've got good friends," said Rosa's guardian, standing upon the step of his own door, and watching the Curate out into the darkness. Mr Wentworth could not altogether restrain a slight thrill of unpleasant emotion, for Elsworthy, standing at his door with the light gleaming over him from behind, and his face invisible, had an unpleasant resemblance to a wild beast waiting for his prey.