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Updated: May 7, 2025
He rushed out of her way as soon as he saw she meant to question him. That designing girl had got him entirely under her sway, the poor young man! Meanwhile the Curate, without a single thought for his landlady, made a rush to Wodehouse's room. He did not wait for any answer to his knock, but went in, not as a matter of policy, but because his eagerness carried him on in spite of himself.
Mr Wentworth sat still as long as he could, then he added to the din they were making outside by an indignant ring of his own bell; and finally getting anxious, as was natural, and bethinking himself of his father's attack and Mr Wodehouse's illness, the Curate took the matter into his own hands, and hastened down-stairs to open the door.
It was at him that Mr Proctor was staring, who cleared his voice a great many times, and came forward to the middle of the room and looked as if he meant to speak; and upon him every eye was fixed except Mr Wentworth's, who was watching Lucy, and Miss Wodehouse's, which were hidden in her hands.
These sentiments made him receive but sulkily the admonitions of the Curate, when he led the way out of the preoccupied sitting-room; for Mr Wentworth was certainly not the victor in this passage of arms. "I will do what I can to help you out of this," said the Curate, pausing within the door of Wodehouse's room, "for the sake of your friends.
"We never had a brother," said the child of Mr Wodehouse's old age; "it must be some mistake." There was a dead pause after these words. When she looked round again, a sickening conviction came to Lucy's heart that it was no mistake. She rose up without knowing it, and looked round upon all the people, who were watching her with various looks of pity and curiosity and spectator-interest.
Had Jack shown any interest, any excitement in the matter, his sway might have been doubtful; but in proportion to the sense of his own insignificance and unimportance Wodehouse's allegiance confirmed itself. He looked wistfully towards the hero of his imagination, as that skilful personage selected his cigar. He would rather have been kicked again than left alone, and left to himself.
He had this little stronghold of his own to retire into. The world could not fall to pieces so long as he continued with eager steps to devour the road which led to Mr Wodehouse's garden-door. Before he had reached that goal, however, he met a group who were evidently returning from some little dinner in Grange Lane.
He was totally unprepared for the secret which only her helplessness and weakness and anxiety to serve her father could have drawn from Miss Wodehouse's lips; and it had to be told so hurriedly that Mr Wentworth scarcely knew what it was, except a terrible unsuspected shadow overhanging the powerful house, until he had time to think it all over. There was no such time at this moment.
He thought of it afterwards with wonder and a strange gratitude. The Rector's wife was not like the conventional type of a pitying angel; and even had she been so, he had not time to recognise her at that moment as he went struggling with his demons to Mr Wodehouse's green door. When the green door was opened, Mr Wentworth saw at a glance that there was agitation and trouble in the house.
"But I know you will stand by us," she said, amid her tears; "it is all the comfort I have and Lucy " There was no sound of any footstep on the stair nothing but the ticking of the timepiece on the mantelshelf, and the rustling of the curtains in the soft morning breeze which came through the open window, and Miss Wodehouse's crying.
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