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Updated: May 7, 2025
She was met at the green door of Mr Wodehouse's garden by the new proprietor, who stared excessively, and did not know what to make of such an apparition. "Jack Wentworth's aunt, by Jove!" he said to himself, and took off his hat, meaning to show her "a little civility." Miss Leonora thought him one of the attendants at the recent ceremonial, and passed him without any ceremony.
While he waited for Miss Wodehouse's return, he stood by Lucy's table, with very little of the feeling which had once prompted him to fold his arms so caressingly with an impulse of tenderness upon the chair which stood beside it.
On the whole, however, it was a cloudy world through which the Perpetual Curate passed as he went from his lodgings, where the whistle of the new lodger had become a great nuisance to him, past the long range of garden-walls, the sentinel window where Miss Dora looked out watching for him, and Mr Wodehouse's green door which he no longer entered every day.
To know that she was under the same roof, and that she knew he was here, but kept away, and did not care to see him, was gall to his excited mind. He went away hastily, pressing poor Miss Wodehouse's hand with a kind of silent rage. "Don't talk about Lucy," he said, half to himself, his heart swelling and throbbing at the sound of the name.
It did not occur to Dr Rider that the night was extremely dark, and that Nettie had been at Miss Wodehouse's, where the curate of St Roque's was a perpetual visitor.
He put down Gerald's letter, after he had read through half of it, with an exclamation of impatience which he could not restrain, and then poured out his coffee, which had got cold in the mean time, and gulped it down with a sense of half-comforting disgust for there are moments when the mortification of the flesh is a relief to the spirit; and then it occurred to him to remember Wodehouse's tray, which was a kind of love-offering to the shabby vagabond, and the perfect good order in which he had his breakfast; and Mr Wentworth laughed at himself with a whimsical perception of all that was absurd in his own position which did him good, and broke the spell of his solitary musings.
"Presently," said the unhappy Curate, with mingled impatience and resignation; and, after a hasty knock at the door, he went into Wodehouse's room, which was opposite, so full of a furious anxiety to question him that he had burst into speech before he perceived that the room was empty. "Answer me this instant," he had cried, "where is Rosa Elsworthy?" and then he paused, utterly taken aback.
"We had made up our minds you had come to tell papa," said Janet, with her pretty shy look; "that was my guess you might tell us her name, Frank." "Whose name?" said the unfortunate Curate; and the dazzling vision of Lucy Wodehouse's face, which came upon him at the moment, was such, that the reluctant blood rose high in his cheeks which, of course, the girls were quick enough to perceive.
When Lucy came in she kissed her sister, and drew down the blinds, and brought her the third volume, and then went away herself to arrange the dessert, and see that everything was in order for one of Mr Wodehouse's little parties.
It aint as I care for him, but it's the key and my character as I'm a-thinking of," cried the poor girl, bursting into audible sobs that could be restrained no longer. Mr Wentworth took a candle and went into Wodehouse's empty room, leaving her to recover her composure. Everything was cleared and packed up in that apartment.
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