The Perpetual Curate

the Perpetual Curate, who returned up Prickett’s Lane with a heightened colour and quickened pulse. A man must be an angel indeed who can see his work taken out of his hands and betray no human emotion. Mr. Wentworth went into Elsworthy’s, as he went back, to write a forcible little note to the Rector on the subject before he returned home. It was Rosa who handed him the paper he wanted, and he gave her a little nod without looking at her. But when he had closed his note, and laid it on the counter to be delivered, the Curate found her still standing near, and looked at the little blushing creature with some natural admiration. “So you have come back,” he said; “but mind you don’t go into Grange Lane any more after dark, little Rosa.” When he had left the shop and finished this little matter, he bethought himself of his aunts, whom he had not seen since he returned. Aunt Dora was not at her usual sentinel window when he crossed Grange Lane towards their garden-door; and the door itself was open, and someone from the Blue Boar was carrying in a large portmanteau. Mr. Wentworth’s curiosity was strangely excited by the sight. He said, “Who has come, Lewis?” to Miss Wentworth’s man, who stood in the hall superintending the arrival, but ran upstairs without waiting for any answer. He felt by instinct that the visitor was someone likely to increase the confusion of affairs, and perplex matters more and more to himself.

But even this presentiment did not prepare him for the astonishing sight which met his eyes when he entered the drawing-room. There the three ladies were all assembled, regarding with different developments of interest the newcomer, who had thrown himself, half-reclining, on a sofa. Aunt Dora was sitting by him with a bottle of eau de cologne in her hand, for this meeting had evidently gone to the heart of the returned prodigal. Aunt Dora was ready to have sacrificed all the veal in the country in honour of Jack’s repentance; and the Curate stood outside upon the threshold, looking at the scene with the strangest half-angry, half-comical realisation of the state of mind of the elder brother in the parable. He had himself been rather found fault with, excused, and tolerated, among his relations; but Jack had at once become master of the position, and taken possession of all their sympathies. Mr. Wentworth stood gazing at them, half-amused, and yet more angry than amused⁠—feeling, with a little indignation, as was natural, that the pretended penitence of the clever sinner was far more effective and interesting than his own spotless loyalty and truth. To be sure, they were only three old ladies⁠—three old aunts⁠—and he smiled at the sight; but though he smiled, he did not like it, and perhaps was more abrupt than usual in his salutations. Miss Leonora was seated at her writing-table, busy with her correspondence. The question of the new gin-palace was not yet decided, and she had been in the middle of a letter of encouragement to her agents on the subject, reminding them that, even though the licence was granted, the world would still go on all the same, and that the worst possibilities must be encountered, when Jack the prodigal made his appearance, with all the tokens of reformation and repentance about him, to throw himself upon the Christian charity of his relations. A penitent sinner was too tempting a bait for even Miss Leonora’s good sense to withstand, and she had postponed her letter-writing to hear his explanations. But Jack had told his story by this time, and had explained how much he wanted to withdraw out of the world in which he had been led astray, and how sick he was of all its whirl of temptations and disappointment; and Miss Leonora had returned to her letter when her younger nephew arrived. As for Miss Wentworth, she was seated placidly in her usual easy-chair, smiling with equable smiles upon both the young men, and lifting her beautiful old cheek for Frank to kiss, just as she had lifted it to Jack. It was Miss Dora who was most shaken out of her allegiance; she who had always made Frank her special charge. Though she had wept herself into a day’s headache on his behalf so short a time ago, aunt Dora for a moment had allowed the more effusive prodigal to supersede Frank. Instead of taking him into her arms as usual, and clinging to him, she only put the hand that held the eau de cologne over his shoulder as she kissed him. Jack, who had been so dreadfully, inexpressibly wicked, and who had come back to his aunts to be converted and restored to his right mind, was more interesting than many curates. She sat down again by her penitent as soon as she had saluted his brother; and even Miss Leonora, when she paused in her letter, turned her eyes towards Jack.

“So Gerald is actually going over to Rome,” said the strong-minded aunt. “I never expected anything else. I had a letter from Louisa yesterday, asking me to use my influence: as if I had any influence over your brother! If a silly wife was any justification for a man making an idiot of himself, Gerald might be excused; but I suppose the next thing we shall hear of will be that you have followed him, Frank. Did you hear anything further about Janet and that lover of hers? In a large family like ours there is always something troublesome going on,” said Miss Leonora. “I am not surprised to hear of your father’s attack. My father had a great many attacks, and lived to eighty; but he had few difficulties with the female part of his household,” she continued, with a grim little smile⁠—for Miss Leonora rather piqued herself upon her exemption from any known sentimental episode, even in her youth.

“Dear