The Perpetual Curate

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.

“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 dullness 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 today,” 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.

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 tomorrow, 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