“He deserved a great deal more than I said to him,” said the Rector’s wife. “It might be an advantage to take the furniture, as it was all new, though it is a perpetual vexation to me, and worries me out of my life; but there was no need to take the curate, that I can see. What right has he to come day after day at your dinner-hour? he knows we dine at six as well as we do ourselves; and I do believe he knows what we have for dinner,” exclaimed the incensed mistress of the house; “for he always makes his appearance when we have anything he likes. I hope I know my duty, and can put up with what cannot be mended,” continued Mrs. Morgan, with a sigh, and a mental reference to the carpet in the drawing-room; “but there are some things really that would disturb the temper of an angel. I don’t know anybody that could endure the sight of a man always coming unasked to dinner;—and he to speak of Mr. Wentworth, who, if he were the greatest sinner in the world, is always a gentleman!” Mrs. Morgan broke off with a sparkle in her eye, which showed that she had neither exhausted the subject, nor was ashamed of herself; and the Rector wisely retired from the controversy. He went to bed, and slept, good man, and dreamt that Sir Charles Grandison had come to be his curate in place of Mr. Leeson; and when he woke, concluded quietly that Mrs. Morgan had “experienced a little attack on the nerves,” as he explained afterwards to Dr. Marjoribanks. Her compunctions, her longings after the lost life they might have lived together, her wistful womanish sense of the impoverished existence, deprived of so many experiences, on which they had entered in the dry maturity of their middle age, remained forever a mystery to her faithful husband. He was very fond of her, and had a high respect for her character; but if she had spoken Sanskrit, he could not have had less understanding of the meaning her words were intended to convey.
Notwithstanding, a vague idea that his wife was disposed to side with Mr. Wentworth had penetrated the brain of the Rector, and was not without its results. He told her next morning, in his curt way, that he thought it would be best to wait a little before taking any steps in the Wharfside business. “If all I hear is true, we may have to proceed in a different way against the unhappy young man,” said Mr. Morgan, solemnly; and he took care to ascertain that Mr. Leeson had an invitation somewhere else to dinner, which was doing the duty of a tender husband, as everybody will allow.
XIII
“I want to know what all this means about young Wentworth,” said Mr. Wodehouse. “He’s gone off, it appears, in a hurry, nobody knows where. Well, so they say. To his brother’s, is it? I couldn’t know that; but look here—that’s not all, nor nearly all—they say he meets that little Rosa at Elsworthy’s every night, and walks home with her, and all that sort of thing. I tell you I don’t know—that’s what people say. You ought to understand all the rights of it, you two girls. I confess I thought it was Lucy he was after, for my part—and a very bad match, too, and one I should never have given my consent to. And then there is another fine talk about some fellow he’s got at his house. What’s the matter, Molly?—she looks as if she was going to faint.”
“Oh no,” said Miss Wodehouse, faintly; “and I don’t believe a word about Rosa Elsworthy,” she said, with sudden impetuosity, a minute after. “I am sure Mr. Wentworth could vindicate himself whenever he likes. I daresay the one story is just as true as the other; but then,” said the gentle elder sister, turning with anxious looks towards Lucy, “he is proud, as is natural; and I shouldn’t think he would enter into explanations if he thought people did not trust him without them.”
“That is all stuff,” said Mr. Wodehouse; “why should people trust him? I don’t understand trusting a man in all sorts of equivocal circumstances, because he’s got dark eyes, etc., and a handsome face—which seems your code of morality; but I thought he was after Lucy—that was my belief—and I want to know if it’s all off.”
“It never was on, papa,” said Lucy, in her clearest voice. “I have been a great deal in the district, you know, and Mr. Wentworth and I could not help meeting each other; that is all about it: but people must always have something to talk about in Carlingford. I hope you don’t think I and Rosa Elsworthy could go together,” she went on, turning round to him with a smile. “I don’t think that would be much of a compliment;” and, saying this, Lucy went to get her work out of its usual corner, and sat down opposite to her father, with a wonderfully composed face. She was so composed, indeed, that any interested beholder might have been justified in thinking that the work suffered in consequence, for it seemed to take nearly all Lucy’s strength and leisure to keep up that look.
“Oh!” said Mr. Wodehouse, “that’s how it was? Then I wonder why that confounded puppy came here so constantly? I don’t like that sort of behaviour. Don’t you go into the district any more and meet him—that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Because of Rosa Elsworthy?” said Lucy, with a little smile, which did not flicker naturally, but was apt to get fixed at
