“Is Mr. Wodehouse ill? What has happened?” said the astonished young man. The windows of the house were gleaming hospitably over the dark garden, without any appearance of gloom—the drawing-room windows especially, which he knew so well, brightly lighted, one of them open, and the sound of the piano and Lucy’s voice stealing out like a celestial reality into the darkness. By the time he had become fully sensible of all these particulars his agitated companion had found her breath.
“Mr. Wentworth, don’t think me mad,” said Miss Wodehouse; “I have come out to speak to you, for I am in great distress. I don’t know what to do unless you will help me. Oh no, don’t look at the house—nobody knows in the house; I would die rather than have them know. Hush, hush! don’t make any noise. Is that someone looking out at the door?”
And just then the door was opened, and Mr. Wodehouse’s sole male servant looked out, and round the garden, as if he had heard something to excite his curiosity or surprise. Miss Wodehouse grasped the arm of the Perpetual Curate, and held him with an energy which was almost violence. “Hush, hush, hush,” she said, with her voice almost at his ear. The excitement of this mild woman, the perfectly inexplicable mystery of the meeting, overwhelmed young Wentworth. He could think of nothing less than that she had lost her senses, and in his turn he took her hands and held her fast.
“What is the matter? I cannot tell you how anxious, how distressed I am. What has happened?” said the young man, under his breath.
“My father has some suspicion,” she answered, after a pause—“he came home early today looking ill. You heard of it, Mr. Wentworth—it was your note that decided me. Oh, heaven help us! it is so hard to know what to do. I have never been used to act for myself, and I feel as helpless as a baby. The only comfort I have was that it happened on Easter Sunday,” said the poor gentlewoman, incoherently; “and oh! if it should prove a rising from the dead! If you saw me, Mr. Wentworth, you would see I look ten years older; and I can’t tell you how it is, but I think my father has suspicions;—he looked so ill—oh, so ill—when he came home tonight. Hush! hush! did you hear anything? I daren’t tell Lucy; not that I couldn’t trust her, but it is cruel when a young creature is happy, to let her know such miseries. Oh, Mr. Wentworth, I daresay I am not telling you what it is, after all. I don’t know what I am saying—wait till I can think. It was on Easter Sunday, after we came home from Wharfside; you remember we all came home together, and both Lucy and you were so quiet. I could not understand how it was you were so quiet, but I was not thinking of any trouble—and then all at once there he was.”
“Who?” said the Curate, forgetting caution in his bewilderment.
Once more the door opened, and John appeared on the steps, this time with a lantern and the watchdog, a great brown mastiff, by his side, evidently with the intention of searching the garden for the owners of those furtive voices. Mr. Wentworth drew the arm of his trembling companion within his own. “I don’t know what you want of me, but whatever it is, trust to me like—like a brother,” he said, with a sigh. “But now compose yourself; we must go into the house: it will not do for you to be found here.” He led her up the gravel-walk into the light of the lantern, which the vigilant guardian of the house was flashing among the bushes as he set out upon his rounds. John fell back amazed but respectful when he saw his mistress and the familiar visitor. “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but I knew there was voices, and I didn’t know as any of the family was in the garden,” said the man, discomfited. It was all Mr. Wentworth could do to hold up the trembling figure by his side. As John retreated, she gathered a little fortitude. Perhaps it was easier for her to tell her hurried tremulous story, as he guided her back to the house, than it would have been in uninterrupted leisure and quiet. The family tragedy fell in broken sentences from her lips, as the Curate bent down his astonished ear to listen. He was totally unprepared for the secret which only her helplessness and weakness and anxiety to serve her father could have drawn from Miss Wodehouse’s lips; and it had to be told so hurriedly that Mr. Wentworth scarcely knew what it was, except a terrible unsuspected shadow overhanging the powerful house, until he had time to think it all over. There was no such time at this moment. His trembling companion left him as soon as they reached the house, to “compose herself,” as she said. When he saw her face in the light of the hall lamp it was ghastly, and quivering with agitation, looking not ten years, as she said, but a hundred years older than when, in the sweet precision of her Sunday dress and looks, old Miss Wodehouse had bidden him goodbye at the green door. He went up to the drawing-room, notwithstanding, with as calm a countenance as he himself could collect, to pay the visit which, in this few minutes, had so entirely changed in character. Mr. Wentworth felt as if he saw everything exactly as he had pictured it to himself half an hour ago. Lucy, who had
