It was such a very lovely night, that Mrs. Morgan was tempted to go further than she intended. She called on two or three of her favourites in Grove Street, and was almost as friendly with them as Lucy Wodehouse was with the people in Prickett’s Lane; but being neither pretty and young, like Lucy, nor yet a mother with a nursery, qualified to talk about the measles, her reception was not quite as enthusiastic as it might have been. Somehow it would appear as though our poor neighbours loved most the ministrations of youth, which is superior to all ranks in the matter of possibility and expectation, and inferior to all ranks in the matter of experience; and so holds a kind of balance and poise of nature between the small and the great. Mrs. Morgan was vaguely sensible of her disadvantages in this respect as well as in others. She never could help imagining what she might have been had she married ten years before at the natural period. “And even then not a girl,” she said to herself in her sensible way, as she carried this habitual thread of thought with her along the street, past the little front gardens, where there were so many mothers with their children. On the other side of the way the genteel houses frowned darkly with their staircase windows upon the humility of Grove Street; and Mrs. Morgan began to think within herself of the Miss Hemmings and other spinsters, and how they got along upon this path of life, which, after all, is never lightsome to behold, except in the future or the past. It was dead present with the Rector’s wife just then, and many speculations were in her mind, as was natural. “Not that I could not have lived unmarried,” she continued within herself, with a woman’s pride; “but things looked so different at five-and-twenty!” and in her heart she grudged the cares she had lost, and sighed over this wasting of her years.
It was just then that the youngest Miss Hemmings saw Mrs. Morgan, and crossed over to speak to her. Miss Hemmings had left five-and-thirty behind a long time ago, and thought the Rector’s wife a happy woman in the bloom of youth. When she had discovered conclusively that Mrs. Morgan would not go in to have a cup of tea, Miss Hemmings volunteered to walk with her to the corner; and it is not necessary to say that she immediately plunged into the topic which at that moment engaged all minds in Carlingford. “If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I should not have believed it,” said Miss Hemmings. “I should have thought it a got-up story; not that I ever could have thought it impossible, as you say—for, alas! I know well that without grace every wickedness is more than possible—but I saw them with my own eyes, my dear Mrs. Morgan; she standing outside, the bold little thing, and he at the door—as if it was right for a clergyman to open the door like a manservant—and from that moment to this she has not been seen by any living creature in Carlingford: who can tell what may have been done with her?” cried the horrified eyewitness. “She has never been seen from that hour!”
“But that was only twenty-four hours ago,” said Mrs. Morgan; “she may have gone off to visit some of her friends.”
“Ah, my dear Mrs. Morgan, twenty-four hours is a long time for a girl to disappear out of her own home,” said Miss Hemmings; “and all her friends have been sent to, and no word can be heard of her. I am afraid it will go very hard with Mr. Wentworth; and I am sure it looks like a judgment upon him for all his candlesticks and flowers and things,” she continued, out of breath with the impetuosity of her tale.
“Do you think, then, that God makes people sin in order to punish them?” said Mrs. Morgan, with some fire, which shocked Miss Hemmings, who did not quite know how to reply.
“I do so wish you would come in for a few minutes and taste our tea; my sister Sophia was just making it when I came out. We get it from our brother in Assam, and we think a great deal of it,” said Miss Hemmings; “it can’t possibly be adulterated, you know, for it comes direct from his plantation. If you can’t come in just now, I will send you some to the Rectory, and you shall tell us how you like it. We are quite proud of our tea. My brother has a large plantation, and he hopes—”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Morgan, “but the Rector will be waiting for me, and I must go. It must be very nice to have your tea direct from the plantation; and I hope you will change your mind about Mr. Wentworth,” she continued, without much regard for punctuation, as she shook hands at the corner. Mrs. Morgan went down a narrow street which led to Grange Lane, after this interview, with some commotion in her mind. She took Mr. Wentworth’s part instinctively, without asking any proofs of his innocence.
