"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, &c., 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 the corners of her pretty mouth. "That would never do, papa. Mr Wentworth's private concerns are nothing to us; but, you know, there is a great work going on in the district, and that can't be interfered with," said the young Sister of Mercy, looking up at him with a decision which Mr Wodehouse was aware he could make no stand against. And when she stopped speaking, Lucy did a little work, which was for the district too. All this time she was admitting to herself that she had been much startled by this news about Rosa Elsworthy,—much startled. To be sure, it was not like Mr Wentworth, and very likely it would impair his influence; and it was natural that any friend taking an interest in him and the district, should be taken a little aback by such news. Accordingly, Lucy sat a little more upright than usual, and was conscious that when she smiled, as she had just done, the smile did not glide off again in a natural way, but settled down into the lines of her face with a kind of spasmodic tenacity. She could do a great deal in the way of self-control, but she could not quite command these refractory muscles. Mr Wodehouse, who was not particularly penetrating, could not quite make her out; he saw there was something a little different from her ordinary look about his favourite child, but he had not insight enough to enable him to comprehend what it was.
"And about his man who is staying at Mrs Hadwin's?" said the perplexed churchwarden; "does any one know who the fellow is? I don't understand how Wentworth has got into all this hot water in a moment. Here's the Rector in a state of fury,—and his aunts,—and now here's this little bit of scandal to crown all;—and who is this fellow in his house?"
"It must be somebody he has taken in out of charity," said Miss Wodehouse, with tears in her eyes; "I am sure it is somebody whom he has opened his doors to out of Christian charity and the goodness of his heart. I don't understand how you can all desert him at the first word. All the years he has been here, you know there never was a whisper against him; and is it in reason to think he would go so far wrong all in a moment?" cried the faithful advocate of the Perpetual Curate. Her words were addressed to Mr Wodehouse, but her eyes sought Lucy, who was sitting very upright doing her work, without any leisure to look round. Lucy had quite enough to occupy her within herself at that emergency, and the tearful appeal of her elder sister had no effect upon her. As for Mr Wodehouse, he was more and more puzzled how to interpret these tears in his daughter's eyes.
"I don't make it out at all," said the perplexed father, getting up to leave the room. "I hope you weren't in love with him, Molly? you ought to have too much sense for that. A pretty mess he'll find when he comes home; but he must get out of it the best way he can, for I can't help him, at least. I don't mean to have him asked here any more—you understand, Lucy," he said, turning round at the door, with an emphatic creak of his boots. But Lucy had no mind to be seduced into any such confession of weakness.
"You are always having everybody in Carlingford to dinner," said the young housekeeper, "and all the clergymen, even that Mr Leeson; and I don't see why you should except Mr Wentworth, papa; he has done nothing wicked, so far as we know. I daresay he won't want to bring Rosa Elsworthy with him; and why shouldn't he be asked here?" said Lucy, looking full in his face with her bright eyes. Mr Wodehouse was entirely discomfited, and did not know what to say. "I wonder if you know what you mean yourselves, you women," he muttered; and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, and a hasty "settle it as you please," the churchwarden's boots creaked hastily out of the room, and out of the house.
After this a dead silence fell upon the drawing-room and its two occupants. They did not burst forth into mutual comment upon this last piece of Carlingford news, as they would have done under any other circumstances; on the contrary, they bent over their several occupations with quite an unusual devotion, not exchanging so much as a look. Lucy, over her needlework, was the steadiest of the two; she was still at the same point in her thoughts, owning to herself that she was startled, and indeed shocked, by what she had heard—that it was a great pity for Mr Wentworth; perhaps that it was not quite what might have been expected of him,—and then she checked herself, and went back again to her original acknowledgment. To tell the truth, though she assured herself that she had nothing to do with it, a strange sense of having just passed through an unexpected illness, lay underneath Lucy's composure. It was none of her business, to be sure, but she could not help feeling as if she had just had a fever, or some other sudden unlooked-for attack, and that nobody knew of it, and that she must get well as best she could, without any help from without.
It was quite half an hour before Miss Wodehouse got up from the knitting which she had spoiled utterly, trying to take up the dropped stitches with her trembling fingers, and dropping others by every effort she made. The poor lady went wistfully about the room, wandering from corner to corner, as if in search of something; at last she took courage to speak, when she found herself behind her young sister. "Dear, I am sure it is not true," said Miss Wodehouse, suddenly, with a little sob; and then she came close to Lucy's chair, and put her hand timidly upon her sister's shoulder. "Think how many good things you two have done together, dear; and is it likely you are to be parted like this?" said the injudicious comforter. It felt rather like another attack of fever to Lucy, as unexpected as the last.
"Don't speak so, please," said the poor girl, with a momentary shiver. "It is about Mr Wentworth you mean?" she went on, after a little, without turning her head. "I—am sorry, of course. I am afraid it will do him—harm," and then she made a pause, and stumbled over her sewing with fingers which felt feeble and powerless to the very tips—all on account of this fever she had had. "But I don't know any reason why you and I should discuss it, Mary," she said, getting up in her turn, not quite sure whether she could stand at this early period of her convalescence, but resolved to try. "We are both Mr Wentworth's friends—and we need not say any harm of him. I have to get something out of the storeroom for to-night."
"But, Lucy," said the tender, trembling sister, who did not know how to be wise and silent, "I trust him, and you don't. Oh, my dear, it will break my heart. I know some part of it is not true. I know one thing in which he is quite—quite innocent. Oh, Lucy, my darling, if you distrust him it will be returning evil for good!" cried poor Miss Wodehouse, with tears. As for Lucy, she did not quite know what her sister said. She only felt that it was cruel to stop her, and look at her, and talk to her; and there woke up in her mind a fierce sudden spark of resistance to the intolerable.
"Why do you hold me? I may have been ill, but I can stand well enough by myself," cried Lucy, to her sister's utter bewilderment. "That is, I—I mean, I have other things to attend to," she cried, breaking into a few hot tears of mortification over this self-betrayal; and so went away in a strange glow and tremble of sudden passion, such as had never been seen before in that quiet house. She went direct to the storeroom, as she had said, and got out what was wanted; and only after that was done permitted herself to go up to her own room, and turn the key in her door. Though she was a Sister of Mercy, and much beloved in Prickett's Lane, she was still but one of Eve's poor petulant women-children, and had it in her to fly at an intruder on her suffering, like any other wounded creature. But she did not make any wild demonstration of her pain, even when shut up thus in her fortress. She sat down on the sofa, in a kind of dull heaviness, looking into vacancy. She was not positively thinking of Mr Wentworth, or of any one thing in particular. She was only conscious of a terrible difference somehow in everything about her—in the air which choked her breathing, and the light which blinded her eyes. When she came to herself a little, she said over and over, half-aloud, that everything was just the same as it had always been, and that to her at least nothing had happened; but that declaration, though made with vehemence, did not alter matters. The world altogether had sustained a change. The light that was in it was darkened, and the heart stilled. All at once, instead of a sweet spontaneous career, providing for its own wants day by day, life came to look like something which required such an amount of courage and patience and endurance as Lucy had not at hand to support her in the way; and her heart failed her at the moment when she found this out.
Notwithstanding, the people who dined at Mr Wodehouse's that night thought it a very agreeable little party, and more than once repeated the remark, so familiar to most persons in society in Carlingford—that Wodehouse's parties were the pleasantest going, though he himself was humdrum enough. Two or three of the people present had heard the gossip about Mr Wentworth, and discussed it, as was natural, taking different views of the subject; and poor Miss Wodehouse took up his defence so warmly, and with such tearful vehemence, that there were smiles to be seen on several faces. As for Lucy, she made only a very simple remark on the subject. She said: "Mr Wentworth is a great friend of ours, and I think I would rather not hear any gossip about him." Of course there were one or two keen observers who put a subtle meaning to this, and knew what was signified by her looks and her ways all the evening; but, most likely, they were altogether mistaken in their suppositions, for nobody could possibly watch her so closely as did Miss Wodehouse, who know no more than the man in the moon, at the close of the evening, whether her young sister was very wretched or totally indifferent. The truth was certainly not to be discovered, for that night at least, in Lucy's looks.