room composing himself, and planning what he was to do—so long, indeed, that Sarah, after coming up softly to inspect, had cleared the table and put everything straight in the room before the Curate discovered her presence. It was only when she came up to him at last, with her little rustical curtsy, to say that, please, her missis would like to see him for a moment in the parlour, that
Mr. Wentworth found out that she was there. This interruption roused him out of his manifold and complicated thoughts. “I am too busy just now, but I will see
Mrs. Hadwin tonight,” he said; “and you can tell her that my brother has gone to get rooms at the Blue Boar.” After he had thus satisfied the sympathetic handmaiden, the Curate crossed over to the closed door of Wodehouse’s room and knocked. The inmate there was still in bed, as was his custom, and answered
Mr. Wentworth through his beard in a recumbent voice, less sulky and more uncertain than on the previous night. Poor Wodehouse had neither the nerve nor the digestion of his more splendid associate. He had no strength of evil in himself when he was out of the way of it; and the consequence of a restless night was a natural amount of penitence and shame in the morning. He met the Curate with a depressed countenance, and answered all his questions readily enough, even giving him the particulars of the forged bills, in respect to which Thomas Wodehouse the younger could not, somehow, feel so guilty as if it had been a name different from his own which he had affixed to those fatal bits of paper; and he did not hesitate much to promise that he would go abroad and try to make a new beginning if this matter could be settled.
Mr. Wentworth went out with some satisfaction after the interview, believing in his heart that his own remonstrances had had their due effect, as it is so natural to believe—for he did not know, having slept very soundly, that it had rained a good deal during the night, and that
Mrs. Hadwin’s biggest tub (for the old lady had a passion for rainwater) was immediately under poor Wodehouse’s window, and kept him awake as it filled and ran over all through the summer darkness. The recollection of Jack Wentworth, even in his hour of success, was insufficient to fortify the simple soul of his humble admirer against that ominous sound of the unseen rain, and against the flashes of sudden lightning that seemed to blaze into his heart. He could not help thinking of his father’s sickbed in those midnight hours, and of all the melancholy array of lost years which had made him no longer “a gentleman, as he used to be,” but a skulking vagabond in his native place; and his penitence lasted till after he had had his breakfast and
Mr. Wentworth was gone. Then perhaps the other side of the question recurred to his mind, and he began to think that if his father died there might be no need for his banishment; but
Mr. Wentworth knew nothing of this change in his protégé’s sentiments, as he went quickly up Grange Lane. Wharfside and all the district had lain neglected for three long days, as the Curate was aware, and he had promised to call at
No. 10 Prickett’s Lane, and to look after the little orphan children whom Lucy had taken charge of. His occupations, in short, both public and private, were overpowering, and he could not tell how he was to get through them; for, in addition to everything else, it was Friday, and there was a litany service at twelve o’clock at
St. Roque’s. So the young priest had little time to lose as he hurried up once again to
Mr. Wodehouse’s green door.
It was Miss Wodehouse who came to meet the Curate as soon as his presence was known in the house—Miss Wodehouse, and not Lucy, who made way for her sister to pass her, and took no notice of Mr. Wentworth’s name. The elder sister entered very hurriedly the little parlour downstairs, and shut the door fast, and came up to him with an anxious inquiring face. She told him her father was just the same, in faltering tones. “And oh, Mr. Wentworth, has anything happened?” she exclaimed, with endless unspeakable questions in her eyes. It was so hard for the gentle woman to keep her secret—the very sight of somebody who knew it was a relief to her heart.
“I want you to give me full authority to act for you,” said the Curate. “I must go to Mr. Wodehouse’s partner and discuss the whole matter.”
Here Miss Wodehouse gave a little cry, and stopped him suddenly. “Oh, Mr. Wentworth, it would kill papa to know you had spoken to anyone. You must send him away,” she said, breathless with anxiety and terror. “To think of discussing it with anyone when even Lucy does not know—!” She spoke with so much haste and fright that it was scarcely possible to make out her last words.
“Nevertheless I must speak to Mr. Waters,” said the Curate; “I am going there now. He knows all about it already, and has a warrant for his apprehension; but we must stop that. I will undertake that it shall be paid, and you must give me full authority to act for you.” When Miss Wodehouse met the steady look he gave her, she veered immediately from her fright at the thought of having it spoken of, to gratitude to him who was thus ready to take her burden into his hands.
“Oh, Mr. Wentworth, it is so good of you—it is like a brother!” said the trembling woman; and then she made a pause. “I say a brother,” she said, drawing an involuntary moral, “though we have never had any good of ours; and oh, if Lucy only knew—!”
The Curate turned away
