“Lucy, look here. I was a perpetual curate the other day when you said you would have me,” said the energetic lover, who was certainly out of his wits, and did not know what he was saying—“and you said you did not mind?”
“I said it did not matter,” said Lucy, who was slightly piqued that he did not recollect exactly the form of so important a decision. “I knew well enough you were a perpetual curate. Has anything happened, or are you going out of your mind?”
“I think it must be that,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Something so extraordinary has happened that I cannot believe it. Was I in Prickett’s Lane this afternoon as usual, or was I at home in my own room talking to the Rector—or have I fallen asleep somewhere, and is the whole thing a dream?”
“You were certainly not in Prickett’s Lane,” said Lucy. “I see what it is. Miss Leonora Wentworth has changed her mind, and you are going to have Skelmersdale after all. I did not think you could have made up your mind to leave the district. It is not news that gives me any pleasure,” said the Sister of Mercy, as she loosed slowly off from her shoulders the grey cloak which was the uniform of the district. Her own thoughts had been so different that she felt intensely mortified to think of the unnecessary decision she had been so near making, and disappointed that the offer of a living could have moved her lover to such a pitch of pleasure. “All men are alike, it seems,” she said to herself, with a little quiver in her lip—a mode of forestalling his communications which filled the Perpetual Curate with amazement and dismay.
“What are you thinking of?” he said. “Miss Leonora Wentworth has not changed her mind. That would have been a natural accident enough, but this is incredible. If you like, Lucy,” he added, with an unsteady laugh, “and will consent to my original proposition, you may marry on the 15th, not the Perpetual Curate of St. Roque’s, but the Rector of Carlingford. Don’t look at me with such an unbelieving countenance. It is quite true.”
“I wonder how you can talk so,” cried Lucy, indignantly; “it is all a made-up story; you know it is. I don’t like practical jokes,” she went on, trembling a little, and taking another furtive look at him—for somehow it was too wonderful not to be true.
“If I had been making up a story, I should have kept to what was likely,” said Mr. Wentworth. “The Rector has been with me all the afternoon—he says he has been offered his father’s rectory, where he was brought up, and that he has made up his mind to accept it, as he always was fond of the country;—and that he has recommended me to his College for the living of Carlingford.”
“Yes, yes,” said Lucy, impatiently, “that is very good of Mr. Morgan; but you know you are not a member of the College, and why should you have the living? I knew it could not be true.”
“They are all a set of old—Dons,” said the Perpetual Curate; “that is, they are the most accomplished set of fellows in existence, Lucy—or at least they ought to be—but they are too superior to take an ordinary living, and condescend to ordinary existence. Here has Carlingford been twice vacant within a year—which is an unprecedented event—and Buller, the only man who would think of it, is hanging on for a colonial bishopric, where he can publish his book at his leisure. Buller is a great friend of Gerald’s. It is incredible, Lucia mia, but it is true.”
“Is it true? are you sure it is true?” cried Lucy; and in spite of herself she broke down and gave way, and let her head rest on the first convenient support it found, which turned out, naturally enough, to be Mr. Wentworth’s shoulder, and cried as if her heart was breaking. It is so seldom in this world that things come just when they are wanted; and this was not only an acceptable benefice, but implied the entire possession of the “district” and the most conclusive vindication of the Curate’s honour. Lucy cried out of pride and happiness and glory in him. She said to herself, as Mrs. Morgan had done at the beginning of her incumbency, “He will be such a Rector as Carlingford has never seen.” Yet at the same time, apart from her glorying and her pride, a certain sense of pain, exquisite though shortlived, found expression in Lucy’s tears. She had just been making up her mind to accept a share of his lowliness, and to show the world that even a Perpetual Curate, when his wife was equal to her position, might be poor without feeling any of the degradations of poverty; and now she was forestalled, and had nothing to do but accept his competence, which it would be no credit to manage well! Such were the thoughts to which she was reduced, though she had come home from Prickett’s Lane persuading herself that it was duty only, and the wants of the district, which moved her. Lucy cried, although not much given to crying, chiefly because it was the only method she could find of giving expression to the feelings which were too varied and too complicated for words.
All Carlingford knew the truth about Mr. Wentworth’s advancement that evening, and on the next day, which was Sunday, the Church of St. Roque’s was as full as if the plague had broken out in Carlingford, and the population had rushed out, as they might have done in medieval times, to implore the succour of the physician-saint. The first indication of the unusual throng was conveyed to Mr. Wentworth in his little vestry after the choristers had filed
