“You won’t ask no more?” said the Curate, angrily; “do you think I am afraid of you? I have nothing more to say, Elsworthy. Go and look after your business—I will attend to mine; and when we are not forced to meet, let us keep clear of each other. It will be better both for you and me.”
The Curate passed on with an impatient nod; but his assailant did not intend that he should escape so easily. “I shouldn’t have thought, sir, as you’d have borne malice,” said Elsworthy, hastening on after him, yet keeping half a step behind. “I’m a humbled man—different from what I ever thought to be. I could always keep up my head afore the world till now; and if it aint your fault, sir—as I humbly beg your pardon for ever being so far led away as to believe it was—all the same it’s along of you.”
“What do you mean?” said the Curate, who, half amused and half indignant at the change of tone, had slackened his pace to listen to this new accusation.
“What I mean, sir, is, that if you hadn’t been so good and so kindhearted as to take into your house the—the villain as has done it all, him and Rosa could never have known each other. I allow as it was nothing but your own goodness as did it; but it was a black day for me and mine,” said the dramatist, with a pathetic turn of voice. “Not as I’m casting no blame on you, as is well known to be—”
“Never mind what I’m well known to be,” said the Curate; “the other day you thought I was the villain. If you can tell me anything you want me to do, I will understand that—but I am not desirous to know your opinion of me,” said the careless young man. As he stood listening impatiently, pausing a second time, Dr. Marjoribanks came out to his door and stepped into his brougham to go off to his morning round of visits. The Doctor took off his hat when he saw the Curate, and waved it to him cheerfully with a gesture of congratulation. Dr. Marjoribanks was quite stanch and honest, and would have manfully stood by his intimates in dangerous circumstances; but somehow he preferred success. It was pleasanter to be able to congratulate people than to condole with them. He preferred it, and nobody could object to so orthodox a sentiment. Most probably, if Mr. Wentworth had still been in partial disgrace, the Doctor would not have seen him in his easy glance down the road; but though Mr. Wentworth was aware of that, the mute congratulation had yet its effect upon him. He was moved by that delicate symptom of how the wind was blowing in Carlingford, and forgot all about Elsworthy, though the man was standing by his side.
“As you’re so good as to take it kind, sir,” said the clerk of St. Roque’s—“and, as I was a-saying, it’s well known as you’re always ready to hear a poor man’s tale—perhaps you’d let bygones be bygones, and not make no difference? That wasn’t all, Mr. Wentworth,” he continued eagerly, as the Curate gave an impatient nod, and turned to go on. “I’ve heard as this villain is rich, sir, by means of robbing of his own flesh and blood;—but it aint for me to trust to what folks says, after the experience I’ve had, and never can forgive myself for being led away,” said Elsworthy; “it’s well known in Carlingford—”
“For heaven’s sake come to the point and be done with it,” said the Curate. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Sir,” said Elsworthy, solemnly, “you’re a real gentleman, and you don’t bear no malice for what was a mistake—and you aint one to turn your back on an unfortunate family—and Mr. Wentworth, sir, you aint a-going to stand by and see me and mine wronged, as have always wished you well. If we can’t get justice of him, we can get damages,” cried Elsworthy. “He aint to be let off as if he’d done no harm—and seeing as it was along of you—”
“Hold your tongue, sir!” cried the Curate. “I have nothing to do with it. Keep out of my way, or at least learn to restrain your tongue. No more, not a word more,” said the young man, indignantly. He went off with such a sweep and wind of anger and annoyance, that the slower and older complainant had no chance to follow him. Elsworthy accordingly went off to the shop, where his errand-boys were waiting for the newspapers, and where Rosa lay upstairs, weeping, in a dark room, where her enraged aunt had shut her up. Mrs. Elsworthy had shut up the poor little pretty wretch, who might have been penitent under better guidance, but who by this time had lost what sense of shame and wrong her childish conscience was capable of in the stronger present sense of injury and resentment and longing to escape; but the angry aunt, though she could turn the key on poor Rosa’s unfortunate little person, could not shut in the piteous sobs which now and then sounded through and through the house, and which converted all the errand-boys without exception into indignant partisans of Rosa, and even moved the heart of Peter Hayles, who could hear them at the back window where he was making up Dr. Marjoribanks’s prescriptions. As the sense of injury waxed stronger and stronger in Rosa’s bosom, she availed herself, like any other irrational, irresponsible creature, of such means of revenging herself and annoying her keepers as occurred to her. “Nobody ever took no care of me,” sobbed Rosa. “I never had no father or mother. Oh, I wish I was dead!—and nobody wouldn’t care!” These utterances, it may be imagined, went to the very heart
