Part 24 (2/2)

He was going to say ”no harm,” but on second thoughts rejected that expression. ”At least I should be very glad if you would,” said the excellent man, with renewed confusion. ”It's a nice little rectory, with a pretty garden, and all that sort of thing; and--and perhaps--it might help you to settle about going away--and--and I daresay there would be room for Lucy. Don't you think you would try?” cried Mr Proctor, volunteering, in spite of himself, the very hospitality which he had thought it hard might be required of him; but somehow his suit seemed to want backing at the actual moment when it was being made.

As for Miss Wodehouse, she sat and listened to him till he began to falter, and then her composure gave way all at once. ”But as for trying,” she gasped, in broken mouthfuls of speech, ”that would never--never do, Mr Proctor. It has to be done--done for good and all--if--if it is done at all,” sobbed the poor lady, whose voice came somewhat m.u.f.fled through her handkerchief and her tears.

”Then it shall be for good and all!” cried Mr Proctor, with a sudden impulse of energy. This was how it came about that Miss Wodehouse and the late Rector were engaged. He had an idea that he might be expected to kiss her, and certainly ought to call her Mary after this; and hovered for another minute near her seat, not at all disinclined for the former operation. But his courage failed him, and he only drew a chair a little closer and sat down, hoping she would soon stop crying.

And indeed, by the time that he produced out of his pocket-book the little photograph of the new rectory, which he had had made for her by a rural artist, Miss Wodehouse had emerged out of her handkerchief, and was perhaps in her heart as happy in a quiet way as she had ever been in her life. She who had never been good for much, was now, in the time of their need, endowed with a home which she could offer Lucy. It was she, the helpless one of the family, who was to be her young sister's deliverer. Let it be forgiven to her if, in the tumult of the moment, this was the thought that came first.

When Miss Wodehouse went up-stairs after this agitating but satisfactory interview, she found Lucy engaged in putting together some books and personal trifles of her own which were scattered about the little sitting-room. She had been reading 'In Memoriam' until it vexed her to feel how inevitably good sense came in and interfered with the enthusiasm of her grief, making her sensible that to apply to her fond old father all the lofty lauds which were appropriate to the poet's hero would be folly indeed. He had been a good tender father to her, but he was not ”the sweetest soul that ever looked with human eyes;” and Lucy could not but stop in her reading with a kind of pang and self-reproach as this consciousness came upon her. Miss Wodehouse looked rather aghast when she found her sister thus occupied. ”Did you think of accepting Miss Wentworth's invitation, after all?” said Miss Wodehouse; ”but, dear, I am afraid it would be awkward; and oh, Lucy, my darling, I have so many things to tell you,” said the anxious sister, who was shy of communicating her own particular news. Before many minutes had pa.s.sed, Lucy had thrown aside all the books, and was sitting by her sister's side in half-pleased, disconcerted amazement to hear her story. Only half-pleased--for Lucy, like most other girls of her age, thought love and marriage were things which belonged only to her own level of existence, and was a little vexed and disappointed to find that her elder sister could condescend to such youthful matters. On the whole, she rather blushed for Mary, and felt sadly as if she had come down from an imaginary pedestal. And then Mr Proctor, so old and so ordinary, whom it was impossible to think of as a bridegroom, and still less as a brother. ”I shall get used to it presently,” said Lucy, with a burning flush on her cheek, and a half feeling that she had reason to be ashamed; ”but it is so strange to think of you in that way, Mary. I always thought you were too--too sensible for that sort of thing,” which was a reproach that went to Miss Wodehouse's heart.

”Oh, Lucy, dear,” said that mild woman, who in this view of the matter became as much ashamed of herself as Lucy could desire, ”what could I do? I know what you mean, at my time of life; but I could not let you be dependent on Tom, my darling,” said Miss Wodehouse, with a deprecating appealing look.

”No indeed,” said Lucy; ”that would be impossible under any circ.u.mstances: nor on you either, Mary dear. I can do something to make a living, and I should like it. I have always been fond of work.

I will not permit you to sacrifice yourself for me,” said the younger sister, with some dignity. ”I see how it has been. I felt sure it was not of your own accord.”

Miss Wodehouse wrung her hands with dismay and perplexity. What was she to do if Lucy stood out and refused her consent? She could not humble herself so far as to confess that she rather liked Mr Proctor, and was, on the whole, not displeased to be married; for the feeling that Lucy expected her to be too sensible for that sort of thing overawed the poor lady. ”But, Lucy, I have given him my promise,” said poor Miss Wodehouse. ”It--it would make him very unhappy. I can't use him badly, Lucy dear.”

”I will speak to him, and explain if it is necessary. Whatever happens, I can't let you sacrifice yourself for me,” said Lucy. All the answer Miss Wodehouse could make was expressed in the tears of vexation and mortification which rushed to her eyes. She repelled her young sister's ministrations for the first time in her life with hasty impatience. Her troubles had not been few for the last twenty-four hours. She had been questioned about Tom till she had altogether lost her head, and scarcely knew what she was saying; and Lucy had not applauded that notable expedient of throwing the shame of the family upon Mr Wentworth, to be concealed and taken care of, which had brought so many vexations to the Perpetual Curate. Miss Wodehouse at last was driven to bay. She had done all for the best, but n.o.body gave her any credit for it; and now this last step, by which she had meant to provide a home for Lucy, was about to be contradicted and put a stop to altogether. She put away Lucy's arm, and rejected her consolations. ”What is the use of pretending to be fond of me if I am always to be wrong, and never to have my--my own way in anything?”

cried the poor lady, who, beginning with steadiness, broke down before she reached the end of her little speech. The words made Lucy open her blue eyes with wonder; and after that there followed a fuller explanation, which greatly changed the ideas of the younger sister.

After her ”consent” had been at last extracted from her, and when Miss Wodehouse regained her composure, she reported to Lucy the greater part of the conversation which had taken place in the drawing-room, of which Mr Proctor's proposal const.i.tuted only a part, and which touched upon matters still more interesting to her hearer. The two sisters, preoccupied by their father's illness and death, had up to this time but a vague knowledge of the difficulties which surrounded the Perpetual Curate. His trial, which Mr Proctor had reported to his newly-betrothed, had been unsuspected by either of them; and they were not even aware of the event which had given rise to it--the disappearance of Rosa Elsworthy. Miss Wodehouse told the story with faltering lips, not being able to divest herself of the idea that, having been publicly accused, Mr Wentworth must be more or less guilty; while, at the same time, a sense that her brother must have had something to do with it, and a great reluctance to name his name, complicated the narrative. She had already got into trouble with Lucy about this unlucky brother, and unconsciously, in her story, she took an air of defence. ”I should have thought better of Mr Wentworth if he had not tried to throw the guilt on another,” said the perplexed woman. ”Oh, Lucy dear, between two people it is so hard to know what to do.”

”I know what I shall do,” said Lucy, promptly; but she would not further explain herself. She was, however, quite roused up out of 'In Memoriam.' She went to her desk and drew out some of the paper deeply edged with black, which announced before words its tale of grief to all her correspondents. It was with some alarm that Miss Wodehouse awaited this letter, which was placed before her as soon as finished.

This was what, as soon as she knew the story, Lucy's prompt and generous spirit said:--

”DEAR MR WENTWORTH,--We have just heard of the vexations you have been suffering, to our great indignation and distress. Some people may think it is a matter with which I have no business to interfere; but I cannot have you think for a moment, that we, to whom you have been so kind, could put the slightest faith in any such accusations against you. We are not of much consequence, but we are two women, to whom any such evil would be a horror. If it is any one connected with us who has brought you into this painful position, it gives us the more reason to be indignant and angry. I know now what you meant about the will. If it was to do over again, I should do just the same; but for all that, I understand now what you meant. I understand, also, how much we owe to you, of which, up to yesterday, I was totally unaware.

You ought never to have been asked to take our burden upon your shoulders. I suppose you ought not to have done it; but all the same, thank you with all my heart. I don't suppose we ever can do anything for you to show our grat.i.tude; and indeed I do not believe in paying back. But in the mean time, thank you--and don't, from any consideration for us, suffer a stain which belongs to another to rest upon yourself. You are a clergyman, and your reputation must be clear.

Pardon me for saying so, as if I were qualified to advise you; but it would be terrible to think that you were suffering such an injury out of consideration for us.--Gratefully and truly yours,

”LUCY WODEHOUSE.”

The conclusion of this letter gave Lucy a good deal of trouble. Her honest heart was so moved with grat.i.tude and admiration that she had nearly called herself ”affectionately” Mr Wentworth's. Why should not she? ”He has acted like a brother to us,” Lucy said to herself; and then she paused to inquire whether his conduct had indeed arisen from brotherly motives solely. Then, when she had begun to write ”faithfully” instead, a further difficulty occurred to her. Not thus lightly and unsolicited could she call herself ”faithful,” for did not the word mean everything that words could convey in any human relations.h.i.+p? When she had concluded it at last, and satisfied her scruples by the formula above, she laid the letter before her sister.

This event terminated the active operations of the day in the dwelling of the Wodehouses. Their brother had not asked to see them, had not interrupted them as yet in their retreat up-stairs, where they were sedulously waited upon by the entire household. When Miss Wodehouse's agitation was over, she too began to collect together her books and personalities, and they ended by a long consultation where they were to go and what they were to do, during the course of which the elder sister exhibited with a certain shy pride that little photograph of the new rectory, in which there was one window embowered in foliage, which the bride had already concluded was to be Lucy's room. Lucy yielded during this sisterly conference to sympathetic thoughts even of Mr Proctor. The two women were alone in the world. They were still so near the grave and the deathbed that chance words spoken without thought from time to time awakened in both the ready tears. Now and then they each paused to consider with a sob what _he_ would have liked best. They knew very little of what was going on outside at the moment when they were occupied with those simple calculations. What was to become of them, as people say--what money they were to have, or means of living--neither was much occupied in thinking of. They had each other; they had, besides, one a novel and timid middle-aged confidence, the other an illimitable youthful faith in one man in the world. Even Lucy, whose mind and thoughts were more individual than her sister's, wanted little else at that moment to make her happy with a tender tremulous consolation in the midst of her grief.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

While matters were thus arranging themselves in the ideas at least of the two sisters whose prospects had been so suddenly changed, explanations of a very varied kind were going on in the house of the Miss Wentworths. It was a very full house by this time, having been invaded and taken possession of by the ”family” in a way which entirely obliterated the calmer interests and occupations of the habitual inhabitants. The three ladies had reached the stage of life which knows no personal events except those of illness and death; and the presence of Jack Wentworth, of Frank and Gerald, and even of Louisa, reduced them altogether to the rank of spectators, the audience, or at the utmost the chorus, of the drama; though this was scarcely the case with Miss Dora, who kept her own room, where she lay on the sofa, and received visits, and told the story of her extraordinary adventure, the only adventure of her life. The interest of the household centred chiefly, however, in the dining-room, which, as being the least habitable apartment in the house, was considered to be most adapted for anything in the shape of business.

On the way from the church to Miss Wentworth's house the Curate had given his father a brief account of all the events which had led to his present position; but though much eased in his mind, and partly satisfied, the Squire was not yet clear how it all came about. His countenance was far from having regained that composure, which indeed the recent course of events in the family had pretty nearly driven out of his life. His fresh light-coloured morning dress, with all its little niceties, and the fresh colour which even anxiety could not drive away from his cheeks, were somehow contradicted in their sentiment of cheerfulness by the puckers in his forehead and the hara.s.sed look of his face. He sat down in the big leathern chair by the fireplace, and looked round him with a sigh, and the air of a man who wonders what will be the next vexation. ”I'd like to hear it over again, Frank,” said the Squire.

”My mind is not what it used to be; I don't say I ever was clever, like you young fellows, but I used to understand what was said to me. Now I seem to require to hear everything twice over; perhaps it is because I have had myself to say the same things over again a great many times lately,” he added, with a sigh of weariness. Most likely his eye fell on Gerald as he said so; at all events, the Rector of Wentworth moved sadly from where he was standing and went to the window, where he was out of his father's range of vision. Gerald's looks, his movements, every action of his, seemed somehow to bear a symbolic meaning at this crisis in his life. He was no longer in any doubt; he had made up his mind. He looked like a martyr walking to his execution, as he crossed the room; and the Squire looked after him, and once more breathed out of his impatient breast a heavy short sigh. Louisa, who had placed herself in the other great chair at the other side of the forlorn fireplace, from which, this summer afternoon, there came no cheerful light, put up her handkerchief to her eyes and began to cry with half-audible sobs--which circ.u.mstances surrounding him were far from being encouraging to Frank as he entered anew into his own story--a story which he told with many interruptions. The Squire, who had once ”sworn by Frank,” had now a terrible shadow of distrust in his mind. Jack was here on the spot, of whom the unfortunate father knew more harm than he had ever told, and the secret dread that he had somehow corrupted his younger brother came like a cold shadow over Mr Wentworth's mind. He could not slur over any part of the narrative, but cross-examined his son to the extent of his ability, with an anxious inquisition into all the particulars. He was too deeply concerned to take anything for granted. He sat up in his chair with those puckers in his forehead, with that hara.s.sed look in his eyes, making an anxious, vigilant, suspicious investigation, which was pathetic to behold. If the defendant, who was thus being examined on his honour, had been guilty, the heart of the judge would have broken; but that was all the more reason for searching into it with jealous particularity, and with a suspicion which kept always gleaming out of his troubled eyes in sudden anxious glances, saying, ”You are guilty?

Are you guilty?” with mingled accusations and appeals. The accused, being innocent, felt this suspicion more hard to bear than if he had been a hundred times guilty.

”I understand a little about this fellow Wodehouse,” said the Squire; ”but what I want to know is, why you took him in? What did you take him in for, sir, at first? Perhaps I could understand the rest if you would satisfy me of that.”

”I took him in,” said the Curate, rather slowly, ”because his sister asked me. She threw him upon my charity--she told me the danger he was in--”

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