with her eyes bent upon the carpet, feeling a little hot and uncomfortable as her husband disclosed his weakness, and watching her opportunities to rush in and say a softening word now and then. The chances were, perhaps, on the whole, that the wife grew more loyal, if that were possible, as she perceived the necessity of standing by him and backing him out. The Rector went very fully into the subject, being drawn out by Miss Leonora's questions, and betrayed an extent of information strangely opposed to the utter ignorance which he had displayed at Mr Wodehouse's party. He knew the hours of Mr Wentworth's services, and the number of people who attended, and even about Tom Burrows's six children who had been baptised the day before. Somehow Mr Morgan took this last particular as a special offence; it was this which had roused him beyond his usual self-control. Six little heathens brought into the Christian fold in his own parish without the permission of the Rector! It was indeed enough to try any clergyman's temper. Through the entire narrative Miss Dora broke in now and then with a little wail expressive of her general dismay and grief, and certainty that her dear Frank did not mean it. Mrs Morgan repeated apart to Miss Wentworth with a troubled brow the fact that all they had seen of Mr Wentworth in private they had liked very much; to which aunt Cecilia answered, "Quite so," with her beautiful smile; while Miss Leonora sat and listened, putting artful questions, and fixing the heated Rector with that iron-grey eye, out of which the sparkle of incipient light had not faded. Mr Morgan naturally said a great deal more than he meant to say, and after it was said he was sorry; but he did not show the latter sentiment except by silence and an uneasy rustling about the room just before the Miss Wentworths rose to go – a sign apparent to his wife, though to nobody else. He gave Miss Wentworth his arm to the door with an embarrassed courtesy. "If you are going to stay any time at Carlingford, I trust we shall see more of you," said Mr Morgan: "I ought to beg your pardon for taking up so much time with my affairs;" and the Rector was much taken aback when Miss Wentworth answered, "Thank you, that is just what I was thinking." He went back to his troubled wife in great perplexity. What was it that was just what she was thinking? – that he would see more of them, or that he had spoken too much of his own affairs?
"You think I have been angry and made an idiot of myself," said Mr Morgan to his wife, who was standing looking from a safe distance through the curtains at the three ladies, who were holding a consultation with their servant out of the window of the solemn chariot provided by the Blue Boar, as to where they were to go next.
"Nonsense, dear; but I wish you had not said quite so much about Mr Wentworth," said the Rector's wife, seizing, with female art, on a cause for her annoyance which would not wound her Welshman's amour propre, "for I rather think he is dependent on his aunts. They have the living of Skelmersdale, I know; and I remember now that their nephew was to have had it. I hope this won't turn them against him, dear," said Mrs Morgan, who did not care the least in the world about Skelmersdale, looking anxiously in her husband's face.
This was the climax of the Rector's trouble. "Why did not you tell me that before?" he said, with conjugal injustice, and went off to his study with a disturbed mind, thinking that perhaps he had injured his own chances of getting rid of the Perpetual Curate. If Mrs Morgan had permitted herself to soliloquise after he was gone, the matter of her thoughts might have been interesting; but as neither ladies nor gentlemen in the nineteenth century are given to that useful medium of disclosing their sentiments, the veil of privacy must remain over the mind of the Rector's wife. She got her gardening gloves and scissors, and went out immediately after, and had an animated discussion with the gardener about the best means of clothing that bit of wall, over which every railway train was visible which left or entered Carlingford. That functionary was of opinion that when the lime-trees "growed a bit" all would be right: but Mrs Morgan was reluctant to await the slow processes of nature. She forgot her vexations about Mr Wentworth in consideration of the still more palpable inconvenience of the passing train.
CHAPTER VI
Miss Dora Wentworth relapsed into suppressed sobbing when the three ladies were once more on their way. Between each little access a few broken words fell from the poor lady's lips. "I am sure dear Frank did not mean it," she said; it was all the plea his champion could find for him.
"He did not mean what? to do his duty and save souls?" said Miss Leonora – "is that what he didn't mean? It looks very much as if he did, though – as well as he knew how."
"Quite so, Leonora," said Miss Wentworth.
"But he could not mean to vex the Rector," said Miss Dora – "my poor dear Frank: of course he meant it for the very best. I wonder you don't think so, Leonora – you who are so fond of missions. I told you what I heard him saying to the young lady – all about the sick people he was going to visit, and the children. He is a faithful shepherd, though you won't think so; and I am sure he means nothing but – "
"His duty, I think," said the iron-grey sister, resolutely indifferent to Miss Dora's little sniffs, and turning her gaze out of the window, unluckily just at the moment when the carriage was passing Masters's shop, where some engravings were hanging of a suspiciously devotional character. The name over the door, and the aspect of the shop-window, were terribly suggestive, and the fine profile of the Perpetual Curate was just visible within to the keen eyes of his aunt. Miss Dora, for her part, dried hers, and, beginning to see some daylight, addressed herself anxiously to the task of obscuring it, and damaging once more her favourite's chance.
"Ah, Leonora, if he had but a sphere of his own," cried Miss Dora, "where he would have other things to think of than the rubric, and decorations, and sisterhoods! I don't wish any harm to poor dear old Mr Shirley, I am sure; but when Frank is in the Rectory – "
"I thought you understood that Frank would not do for the Rectory," said Miss Leonora. "Sisterhoods! – look here, there's a young lady in a grey cloak, and I think she's going into that shop: if Frank carries on that sort of thing, I shall think him a greater fool than ever. Who is that girl?"
"I'm sure I don't know, dear," said Miss Dora, with unexpected wisdom. And she comforted her conscience that she did not know, for she had forgotten Lucy's name. So there was no tangible evidence to confirm Miss Leonora's doubts, and the carriage from the Blue Boar rattled down Prickett's Lane to the much amazement of that locality. When they got to the grimy canal-banks, Miss Leonora stopped the vehicle and got out. She declined the attendance of her trembling sister, and marched along the black pavement, dispersing with the great waves of her drapery the wondering children about, who swarmed as children will swarm in such localities. Arrived at the schoolroom, Miss Leonora found sundry written notices hung up in a little wooden frame inside the open door. All sorts of charitable businesses were carried on about the basement of the house; and a curt little notice about the Provident Society diversified the list of services which was hung up for the advantage of the ignorant. Clearly the Curate of St Roque's meant it. "As well as he knows how," his aunt allowed to herself, with a softening sentiment; but, pushing her inquiries further, was shown up to the schoolroom, and stood pondering by the side of the reading-desk, looking at the table which was contrived to be so like an altar. The Curate, who could not have dreamed of such a visit, and whose mind had been much occupied and indifferent to externals on the day before, had left various things lying about, which were carefully collected for him upon a bench. Among them was a little pocket copy of Thomas à Kempis, from which, when the jealous aunt opened it, certain little German prints, such as were to be had by the score at Masters's, dropped out, some of them unobjectionable enough. But if the Good Shepherd could not be found fault with, the feelings of Miss Leonora may be imagined when the meek face of a monkish saint, inscribed with some villanous Latin inscription, a legend which began with the terrible words Ora pro nobis, became suddenly visible to her troubled eyes. She put away the book as if it had stung her, and made a precipitate retreat. She shook her head as she descended the stair – she re-entered the carriage in gloomy silence. When it returned up Prickett's Lane, the three ladies again saw their nephew, this time entering the door of No. 10. He had his prayer-book under his arm, and Miss Leonora seized upon this professional symbol to wreak her wrath upon it. "I wonder if he can't pray by a sick woman without his prayer-book?"
