The Curate in Charge

The morning was less warm and bright than usual, with a true autumnal haze over the trees. This soothed Cicely when she looked out. She was very early, for there were still various last things to do. She had finished her own individual concerns, and locked her box ready for removal, before it was time to call the children, who slept later and more quietly than usual by another happy dispensation of providence. Cicely heard the auctioneer arrive, and the sound of chatter and laughter with which Betsy received the men, with whom already she had made acquaintance. Why not? Shall everybody be sad because we are in trouble? Cicely asked herself; and she leant out of the window which overlooked the garden, and took a deep draught of the dewy freshness of the morning before she proceeded to wake the children and begin the day’s work. Her eyes, poor child! were as dewy as the morning; but she did not give herself time to cry, or waste her strength by such an indulgence. A knock at her door disturbed her, and she shut the window hastily, and shaking off those stray drops from her eyelashes, went to see what Betsy wanted so early. Betsy stood outside, looking pale and excited. “The men says, please, miss, will you come downstairs?” said Betsy, making an effort at a curtsy, which was so very unusual that Cicely was half amused.

“What do they want? I have to dress the children, Betsy. Could not you do instead?”

“If you please, miss, I’ll dress the children. Do go – go, please Miss Cicely! I’m too frightened. O miss, your poor papa!”

“Papa?” Cicely gave the girl one frightened beseeching look, and then flew downstairs, her feet scarcely touching the steps. Why was he up so early? Why was he vexing himself with those men, and their preparations, making himself miserable about nothing, when there were so many real troubles to bear? The men were standing in a little knot by the study door, which was half open. “What do you want with me? What is it?”

They were confused; one of them put forward another to speak to her, and there was a little rustling, and shuffling, and changing of position, which permitted her to see, as she thought, Mr. St. John sitting, facing the door, in his usual chair. “Ah! it is papa who has come down, I see – thank you for not wishing to disturb him. I will tell him,” said Cicely, passing through the midst of them with swift light youthful steps.

“Don’t let her go! Stop her, for God’s sake!” cried one of the men, in subdued confused tones. She heard them, for she remembered them afterwards; but at that moment the words conveyed no meaning to her. She went in as any child would go up to any father. The chair was pushed away from the writing-table, facing towards the door, as if he had been expecting some one. What surprised Cicely more than the aspect of his countenance, in which at the first glance she saw no particular difference, was that he had upon his knees, folded neatly, a woman’s cloak and hat – her mother’s cloak and hat – which had remained in his room by his particular desire ever since Hester died.

“Papa, what are you doing with these?” she said.

There was no reply. “Papa, are you asleep?” cried Cicely. She was getting very much frightened, her heart beating against her breast. For the moment some impulse of terror drove her back upon the men at the door. “He has gone to sleep,” she said, hurriedly; “he was tired, very much tired last night.”

“We have sent for the doctor, miss,” said one of the men.

“Papa, papa!” said Cicely. She had gone back to him paying no attention to them; and then she gave a low cry, and threw herself on her knees by his side, gazing up into his face, trembling. “What is the matter?” said the girl, speaking low; “what is it, papa? Where were you going with that hat and cloak? Speak to me; don’t sit there and doze. We are to go away – to go away – don’t you remember, to-day?”

Some one else came in just then, though she did not hear. It was the doctor, who came and took her by the arm to raise her. “Run away, my dear; run upstairs till I see what is to be done,” he said. “Somebody take her away.”

Cicely rose up quickly. “I cannot awake him,” she said. “Doctor, I am so glad you have come, though he would not let me send yesterday. I think he must be in a faint.”

“Go away, go away, my dear.”

It neither occurred to the poor girl to obey him nor to think what he meant. She stood by breathless while he looked at the motionless figure in the chair, and took into his own the grey cold hand which hung helpless by Mr. St. John’s side. Cicely did not look at her father, but at the doctor, to know what it was; and round the door the group of men gazed too awestricken, with Betsy, whom curiosity and the attraction of terror had brought downstairs, and one or two labourers from the village passing to their morning’s work, who had come in, drawn by the strange fascination of what had happened, and staring too.

“Hours ago,” said the doctor to himself, shaking his head; “he is quite cold; who saw him last?”

“O doctor, do something!” cried Cicely, clasping her hands; “don’t lose time; don’t let him be like this; do something – oh, do something, doctor! Don’t you know that we are going to-day?”

He turned round upon her very gently, and the group at the door moved with a rustling movement of sympathy. Betsy fell a crying loudly, and some of the men put their hands to their eyes. The doctor took Cicely by the arm, and turned her away with gentle force.

“My dear, you must come with me. I want to speak to you in the next room.”

“But papa?” she cried.

“My poor child,” said the compassionate doctor, “we can do nothing for him now.”

Cicely stood quite still for a moment, then the hot blood flushed into her face, followed by sudden paleness. She drew herself out of the kind doctor’s hold, and went back and knelt down again by her father’s side. Do nothing more for him – while still he sat there, just as he always did, in his own chair?

“Papa, what is it?” she said, trembling, while they all stood round. Suddenly the roughest of all the men, one of the labourers, broke forth into loud sobs.

“Don’t you, miss – don’t, for the love of God!” cried the man.

She could not hear it. All this came fresh to her word for word a little later, but just then she heard nothing. She took the hand the doctor had taken, and put her warm cheek and her young lips to it.

“He is cold because he has been sleeping in his chair,” she cried, appealing to them. “Nothing else – what could it be else? and we are going away to-day!”

The doctor grasped at her arm, almost hurting her. “Come,” he said, “Cicely, this is not like you. We must carry him to bed. Come with me to another room. I want to ask you how he was last night.”

This argument subdued her, and she went meekly out of the room, trying to think that her father was to be carried to his bed, and that all might still be well. Trying to think so; though a chill had fallen upon her, and she knew, in spite of herself.

The men shut the door reverently as the doctor took her away, leaving him there whom no one dared to touch, while they stood outside talking in whispers. Mr. St. John, still and cold, kept possession of the place. He had gone last night, when Cicely saw him, to fetch those relics of his Hester, which he had kept for so many years in his room; but, in his feeble state, had been so long searching before he could find them, that sleep had overtaken Cicely, and she had not heard him stumbling downstairs again with his candle. Heaven knows what fancy it was that had sent him to seek his wife’s cloak and hat; his mind had got confused altogether with trouble and weakness, and the shock of uprootal; and then he had sat down again with a smile, with her familiar garments ready for her, to wait through the night till Hester came. What hour or moment it was no one could tell; but Hester, or some other angel, had come for him according to his expectation, and left nothing but the case and husk of him sitting, as he had sat waiting for her, with her cloak upon his knees.

“I am going to telegraph for her sister,” said the doctor, coming out with red eyes after all was done that could be done, both for the living and the dead. “Of course you will send and stop the people from coming; there can be no sale to-day.”

“Of course,” said the auctioneer. “The young lady wouldn’t believe it, my man tells me. I must get them off at once, or they’ll get drinking. They’re all upset like a parcel of women – what with finding him, and what with seeing the young lady. Poor thing! and, so far as I can learn, very badly left?”

“Left!” cried the doctor; there was derision in the very word. “They are not left at all; they have not a penny in the world. Poor St. John, we must not say a word now against him, and there is not much to say. He got on with everybody. He did his duty by rich and poor. There was never a better clergyman, always ready when you called him, early or late; more ready for nothing,” the doctor added remorsefully, “than I am for my best paying patients. We might have done more to smooth his way for him, perhaps, but he never could take care of money or do anything to help himself; and now they’ll have to pay for it, these two poor girls.”

Thus the curate’s record was made. The news went through the parish like the wind, in all its details; dozens of people were stopped in the village going to the sale, and a little comforted for their disappointment by the exciting story. Some of the people thought it was poor Miss Brown, the other Mrs. St. John, whom he was looking for. Some felt it a strange heathenish sort of thing of him, a clergyman, that he should be thinking at that last moment of anything but the golden city with the gates of pearl; and thought there was a dreadful materialism in the cloak and hat. But most people felt a thrill of real emotion, and the moment he was dead, mourned Mr. St. John truly, declaring that Brentburn would never see the like of him again. Mrs. Ascott cried so that she got a very bad headache, and was obliged to go and lie down. But she sent her maid to ask if they could do anything, and even postponed a dinner-party which was to have been that evening, which was a very gratifying token of respect. Mrs. Joel, who was perhaps at the other extremity of the social scale, cried too, but had no headache, and went off at once to the rectory to make herself useful, pulling all the blinds down, which Betsy had neglected, and telling all the callers that poor Miss Cicely was as well as could be expected, though “it have given her a dreadful shock.” The trunks stood all ready packed and corded, with Mr. St. John’s name upon them. But he had no need of them, though he had kept his word and left Brentburn on the appointed day. After a while people began to think that perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened – best for him certainly – he could never have borne the rooting up, they said – he could never have borne Liverpool, so noisy and quarrelsome. “Why, it would have killed him in a fortnight, such a place,” said Mr. Ascott, who had not, however, lent a hand in any way to help him in his struggle against fate.

Mab, it is needless to say, came down at once with Aunt Jane, utterly crushed and helpless with sorrow. Poor Cicely, who was only beginning to realize what it was, and to make sure that her father absolutely was dead, and beyond the reach of all bringing back, had to rouse herself, and take her sister into her arms and console her. Mab sobbed quietly when she was in her sister’s arms, feeling a sense of strong protection in them.

“I have still you, Cicely,” she said, clinging to her.

“But Cicely has no one,” said Aunt Jane, kissing the pale girl with that compassionate insight which age sometimes brings even to those who do not possess it by nature. “But it is best for you to have them all to look after, if you could but see it, my poor child!”

“I do see it,” said Cicely – and then she had to disentangle herself from Mab’s clinging, and to go out of the room where they had shut themselves up, to see somebody about the “arrangements,” though indeed everybody was very kind and spared her as much as they could.

After the first shock was over it may well be supposed what consultations there were within the darkened rooms. The funeral did not take place till the following Tuesday, as English custom demands, and the days were very slow and terrible to the two girls, hedged round by all the prejudices of decorum, who could do nothing but dwell with their grief in the gloomy house which crushed their young spirits with its veiled windows and changeless dimness. That, and far more, they were ready to do for their father and the love they bore him; but to feel life arrested and stopped short by that shadow of death is hard upon the young. Miss Maydew, whose grief naturally was of a much lighter description than that of the girls, and with whom decorum was stronger than grief, kept them upstairs in their rooms, and treated them as invalids, which was the right thing to do in the circumstances. Only at dusk would she let them go even into the garden, to get the breath of air which nature demanded. She knew all the proper ceremonials which ought to be observed when there was “a death in the house,” and was not quite sure even now how far it was right to let them discuss what they were going to do. To make up for this, she carried to them the scraps of parish gossip which she gleaned from Mrs. Joel and from Betsy in the kitchen. There had, it appeared, been a double tragedy in the parish. A few days after the death of the curate, the village schoolmistress, a young widow with several babies, had “dropped down” and died of heart disease in the midst of the frightened children. “It is a terrible warning to the parish,” said Miss Maydew, “two such events in one week. But your dear papa, everybody knows, was ready to go, and I hope Mrs. Jones was so too. They tell me she was a good woman.”

“And what is to become of the children?” said Cicely, thinking of her own burden.

“Oh, my dear, the children will be provided for; they always are somehow. There are so many institutions for orphans, and people are very good if you know how to get at them. No doubt somebody will take them up. I don’t doubt Mr. Ascott has votes for the British Orphans’ or St. Ann’s Society, or some of these. Speaking of that, my dears, I have been thinking that we ought to try for something of the same kind ourselves. Cicely, hear first what I have got to say before you speak. It is no disgrace. How are Mab and you to maintain these two little boys? Of course you shall have all that I can give you, but I have so little; and if girls can maintain themselves, it is all they are likely to do. There is a society, I am sure, for the orphans of clergymen – ”

“Aunt Jane! Papa’s sons shall never be charity boys – never! if I should work my fingers to the bone, as people say.”

“Your fingers to the bone – what good would that do? Listen to me, girls. Both of you can make a fair enough living for yourselves. You will easily get a good governess’s place, Cicely; for, though you are not very accomplished, you are so thorough – and Mab, perhaps, if she succeeds, may do still better. But consider what that is: fifty pounds a year at the outside; and at first you could not look for that; and you are always expected to dress well and look nice, and Mab would have all sorts of expenses for her materials and models and so forth. The cheapest good school for boys I ever heard of was forty pounds without clothes, and at present they are too young for school. It is a woman’s work to look after two little things like that. What can you do with them? If you stay and take care of them, you will all three starve. It would be far better to get them into some asylum where they would be well looked after; and then,” said Aunt Jane, insinuatingly, “if you got on very well, or if anything fortunate happened, you could take them back, don’t you see, whenever you liked.”

Mab, moved by this, turned her eyes to Cicely for her cue; for there was a great deal of reason in what Aunt Jane said.

“Don’t say anything more about it, please,” said Cicely. “We must not say too much, for I may break down, or any one may break down; but they shall not go upon charity if I can help it. Oh, charity is very good, I know; we may be glad of it, all of us, if we get sick or can’t find anything to do; but I must try first – I must try!”

“O Cicely, this is pride, the same sort of pride that prevented your poor papa from asking for anything – ”

“Hush, Aunt Jane! Whatever he did was right; but I am not like papa. I don’t mind asking so long as it is for work. I have an idea now. Poor Mrs. Jones! I am very very sorry for her, leaving her children desolate. But some one will have to come in her place. Why should it not be me? There is a little house quite comfortable and pleasant where I could have the children; and I think the parish would not refuse me, if it was only for papa’s sake.”

“Cicely! my dear child, of what are you thinking?” said Miss Maydew, in dismay. “A parish schoolmistress! you are dreaming. All this has been too much for you. My dear, my dear, you must never think of such a thing again!”

“O Cicely, it is not a place for a lady, surely,” cried Mab.

“Look here,” said Cicely, the colour mounting to her face. “I’d take in washing if it was necessary, and if I knew how. A lady! there’s nothing about ladies that I know of in the Bible. Whatever a woman can do I’m ready to try, and I don’t care, not the worth of a pin, whether it’s a place for a lady or not. O Aunt Jane, I beg your pardon. I know how good you are – but charity! I can’t bear the thought of charity. I must try my own way.”

“Cicely, listen to me,” cried Aunt Jane, with tears. “I held back, for the children are not my flesh and blood as you are. Perhaps it was mean of me to hold back. O Cicely, I wanted to save what I had for you; but, my dear, if it comes to that, better, far better, that you should bring them to London. I don’t say I’m fond of children,” said Miss Maydew; “it’s so long since I had anything to do with them. I don’t say but what they’d worry me sometimes; but bring them, Cicely, and we’ll do what we can to get on, and when you find a situation, I’ll – I’ll – try – ”

Her voice sank into quavering hesitation, a sob interrupted her. She was ready to do almost all they wanted of her, but this was hard; still, sooner than sacrifice her niece’s gentility, the standing of the family – Cicely had good sense enough to perceive that enough had been said. She kissed her aunt heartily with tender thanks, but she did not accept her offer or say anything further about her own plans. For the moment nothing could be done, whatever the decision might be.

CHAPTER XIX

THE RECTOR’S BEGINNING

MR. MILDMAY came to Brentburn the Saturday after the curate’s death. The Ascotts invited him to their house, and he went there feeling more like a culprit than an innocent man has any right to do. He fairly broke down in the pulpit next day, in the little address he made to the people. “God knows,” he said to them, “that I would give everything I have in the world to bring back to you the familiar voice which you have heard here so long, and which had the teachings of a long experience to give you, teachings more precious than anything a new beginner can say. When I think that but for my appointment this tragedy might not have happened, my heart sinks within me; and yet I am blameless, though all who loved him have a right to blame me.” His voice quivered, his eyes filled with tears, and all the Brentburn folks, who were not struck dumb with wonder, wept. But many of them were struck dumb with wonder, and Mr. Ascott, who was his host, and felt responsible for him, did more than wonder. He interfered energetically when the service was over.

“Mildmay,” he said, solemnly, “mark my words, this will never do. You are no more to blame for poor St. John’s death than I am or any one, and nobody has a right to blame you. Good heavens, if you had never heard of the poor fellow, don’t you think it would have happened all the same? You did a great deal more than any one else would have done – is that why you think it is your fault?”

Mildmay did not make any reply to this remonstrance. Perhaps after he had said it, he felt, as so many impulsive men are apt to do, a hot nervous shame for having said it, and betraying his feelings; but he would not discuss the question with the Ascotts, who had no self-reproach in the matter, no idea that any one could have helped it. They discussed the question now, the first shock being over, and a comfortable Sunday put between them and the event, with great calm.

“He was just the sort of man that would not even have his life insured,” said Mr. Ascott. “What those poor girls are to do, I do not know. Go out for governesses, I suppose, poor things! the common expedient; but then there are those babies. There ought to be an Act of Parliament against second families. I never had any patience with that marriage; and Miss Brown, I suppose, had no friends that could take them up?”

“None that I know of,” his wife replied. “It is a dreadful burden for those girls. It will hamper them in their situations, if they get situations, and keep them from marrying – ”

“They are pretty girls,” said Mr. Ascott. “I don’t see why they shouldn’t marry.”

“That is all very well, Henry,” she replied; “but what man, in his senses, would marry a girl with a couple of children dependent on her?”

“A ready-made family,” he said, with a laugh.

This was on the Sunday evening after dinner. It was dusk, and they could not see their guest’s face, who took no part in the conversation. To hear such a discussion as this, touching the spoiling of a girl’s marriage, is quite a commonplace matter, which the greater part of the world would think it foolishly fastidious to object to, and probably Mr. Mildmay had heard such talk upon other occasions quite unmoved; but it is astonishing the difference it makes when you know the girl thus discussed, and have, let us say, “a respect” for her. He felt the blood come hot to his face; he dared not say anything, lest he should say too much. Was it mere poverty that exposed those forlorn young creatures, whose case surely was sad enough to put all laughter out of court, to such comment? Mrs. Ascott thought it quite possible that Mr. Mildmay, fresh from Oxford, might consider female society frivolous, and was reserving himself for loftier conversation with her husband, and that this was the reason of his silence, so she went away smiling, rustling her silken skirts to the drawing-room, in the humility which becomes the weaker vessel, not feeling herself equal to that loftier strain, to make the gentlemen’s tea.

Her husband, however, came upstairs after her, by himself. Mildmay had gone out for a stroll, he said, and seemed to prefer being alone; he was afraid, after all, he was a morose sort of fellow, with very little “go” in him. As for the new rector, he was very glad to get out into the stillness of the dewy common after the hot room and the fumes of Mr. Ascott’s excellent port, which he disliked, being altogether a man of the new school. He skirted the common under the soft light of some stars, and the incipient radiance of the moon, which had not yet risen, but showed that she was rising. He went even as far as the back of the rectory, and that little path which the curate’s feet had worn, which he followed reverently to the grey cross upon Hester’s grave. Here a flood of peaceful and friendly thoughts came over the young man, bringing the tears to his eyes. He had only known Mr. St. John for about twenty-four hours, yet how much this short acquaintance had affected him! He seemed to be thinking of a dear old friend when he remembered the few moments he had stood here, six weeks before, listening to the curate’s simple talk. “The lights in the girls’ windows;” – there they were, the only lights in the dark house, a glimmer through the half-closed shutters. Then he thought of the old man, bewildered with death and death’s weakness, sitting with his wife’s cloak and hat ready, waiting for her to come who had been waiting all these years under the sod for him to come. “I shall go to her, but she will not come to me,” said the new rector to himself, letting a tear fall upon the cross, where the curate’s hand had rested so tenderly. His heart was full of that swelling sensation of sympathetic sorrow which is both sweet and painful. And she was, they all said, so like her mother. Would any one, he wondered, think of her sometimes as Mr. St. John had done of his Hester? Or would nobody, in his senses, marry a girl burdened with two babies dependent on her? When those words came back to his mind, his cheeks reddened, his pace quickened in a sudden flush of anger. And it was a woman who had said it – a woman whose heart, it might have been thought, would have bled for the orphans, not much more than children any of them, who were thus left in the world to struggle for themselves.