The Curate in Charge

“This was how she liked things, poor soul! Oh, Mab,” cried Cicely, “how strange that she should die!”

“No stranger than that any one else should die,” said Mab, who was more matter of fact.

“A great deal stranger! It was not strange at all that little Mary Seymour should die. One saw it in her eyes; she was like an angel; it was natural; but poor Miss Brown, who was quite happy working cushions and covering them up, and keeping the sun off the carpets, and making lace for the brackets! It looks as if there was so little sense or method in it,” said Cicely. “She won’t have any cushions to work up there.”

“I dare say there won’t be anything to draw up there,” said Mab; “and yet I suppose I shall die too in time.”

“When there are the four walls for Leonardo, and Michel Angelo and Raphael and poor Andrea,” said the other. “How you forget! Besides, it is quite different. Hark! what was that?” she cried, putting up her hand.

What it was soon became very distinctly evident – a feeble little cry speedily joined by another, and then a small weak chorus, two voices entangled together. “No, no; no ladies. Harry no like ladies,” mixed with a whimpering appeal to “papa, papa.”

“Come and see the pretty ladies. Harry never saw such pretty ladies,” said the encouraging voice of Betsy in the passage.

The girls looked at each other, and grew red. They had made up their minds about a great many things, but never how they were to deal with the two children. Then Betsy appeared at the door, pushing it open before her with the tea-tray she carried. To her skirts were hanging two little boys, clinging to her, yet resisting her onward motion, and carried on by it in spite of themselves. They stared at the new-comers with big blue eyes wide open, awed into silence. They were very small and very pale, with light colourless limp locks falling over their little black dresses. The girls on their side stared silently too. There was not a feature in the children’s faces which resembled their elder sisters. They were both little miniatures of Miss Brown.

“So these are the children,” said Cicely, making a reluctant step forward; to which Harry and Charley responded by a renewed clutch at Betsy’s dress.

“Yes, miss; them’s the children! and darlings they be,” said Betsy, looking fondly at them as she set down the tea. Cicely made another step forward slowly, and held out her hands to them; when the little boys set up a scream which rang through the house, and hiding their faces simultaneously in Betsy’s gown, howled to be taken away. Mab put up her hands to her ears, but Cicely, more anxious to do her duty, made another attempt. She stooped down and kissed, or tried to kiss the little tear-stained faces, to which caress each small brother replied by pushing her away with a repeated roar.

“Don’t you take no notice, miss. Let ‘em alone and they’ll get used to you in time,” said Betsy.

“Go away, go away! Harry no like ‘oo,” screamed the spokesman brother. No one likes to be repulsed even by a child. Cicely stumbled to her feet very red and uncomfortable. She stood ruefully looking after them as they were carried off after a good preliminary “shake,” one in each of Betsy’s red hands.

“There is our business in life,” she said in a solemn tone. “Oh, Mab, Mab, what did papa want with these children? All the trouble of them will come on you and me.”

Mab looked at her sister with a look of alarm, which changed, however, into laughter at sight of Cicely’s solemn looks and the dreary presentiment in her face.

“You are excellent like that,” she said; “and if you had only seen how funny you all looked when the little demons began to cry. They will do for models at all events, and I’ll take to painting children. They say it’s very good practice, and nursery pictures always sell.”

These lighter suggestions did not, however, console Cicely. She walked about the room with clasped hands and a very serious face, neglecting her tea.

“Papa will never trouble himself about them,” she said half to herself; “it will all fall on Mab and me. And boys! that they should be boys. We shall never be rich enough to send them to the University. Girls we might have taught ourselves; but when you think of Oxford and Cambridge – ”

“We can’t tell,” said Mab; “how do you know I shan’t turn out a great painter, and be able to send them wherever you like? for I am the brother and you are the sister, Ciss. You are to keep my house and have the spending of all my money. So don’t be gloomy, please, but pour out some tea. I wish, though, they were not quite so plain.”

“So like their mother,” said Cicely with a sigh.

“And so disagreeable; but it is funny to hear one speak for both as if the two were Harry. I am glad they are not girls. To give them a share of all we have I don’t mind; but to teach them! with those white little pasty faces – ”

“One can do anything when one makes up one’s mind to it,” said Cicely with a sigh.

At this moment the hall door opened, and after an interval Mr. St. John came in with soft steps. He had grown old in these last years; bowed down with age and troubles. He came up to his daughters and kissed them, laying his hand upon their heads.

“I am very glad you have come home,” he said, in a voice which was pathetic in its feebleness. “You are all I have now.”

“Not all you have, papa,” said Mab; “we have just seen the little boys.”

A momentary colour flushed over his pale face. “Ah, the babies,” he said. “I am afraid they will be a great deal of trouble to you, my dears.”

Cicely and Mab looked at each other, but they did not say anything – they were afraid to say something which they ought not to say. And what could he add after that? He took the cup of tea they offered him, and drank it standing, his tall frame with a stoop in it, which was partly age and partly weakness, coming against one tall window and shutting out the light. “But that you are older looking,” he said at last, “all this time might seem like a dream.”

“A sad dream, papa,” said Cicely, not knowing what to say.

“I cannot say that, my dear. I thank God I have had a great deal of happiness in my life; because we are sad for the moment we must not forget to thank Him for all His mercies,” said Mr. St. John; and then with a change in his voice, he added, “Your aunt sends me word that she is coming soon to see you. She is a very strong woman for her years; I look older than she does; and it is a trouble to me now to go to town and back in one day.”

“You have not been ill, papa?”

“No, Cicely, not ill; a little out of my usual,” he said, “that is all. Now you are here, we shall fall into our quiet way again. The changes God sends we must accept; but the little worries are trying, my dear. I am getting old, and am not so able to brave them; but all will be well now you are here.”

“We shall do all we can,” said Cicely; “but you must remember, papa, we are not used to housekeeping, and if we make mistakes at first – ”

“I am not afraid of your mistakes,” said Mr. St. John, looking at her with a faint smile. He had scarcely looked full at her before, and his eyes dwelt upon her face with a subdued pleasure. “You are your mother over again,” he said. “You will be a blessing to me, Cicely, as she was.”

The two girls looked at him strangely, with a flood of conflicting thoughts. How dared he speak of their mother? Was he relieved to be able to think of their mother without Miss Brown coming in to disturb his thoughts? If natural reverence had not restrained them, what a cross-examination they would have put him to! but as it was, their eager thoughts remained unsaid. “I will do all I can, papa, and so will Mab,” said Cicely, faltering. And he put down his cup, and said, “God bless you, my dears,” and went to his study as if they had never been absent at all, only out perhaps, as Mab said, for a rather long walk.

“I don’t think he can have cared for her,” said Cicely; “he is glad to get back to the idea of mamma; I am sure that is what he means. He is always kind, and of course he was kind to her; but there is a sort of relief in his tone – a sort of ease.”

“That is all very well for us,” said Mab; “but if you will think of it, it seems a little hard on poor Miss Brown.”

This staggered Cicely, who loved justice. “But I think she should not have married him,” she said. “It was easy to see that anybody could have married him who wished. I can see that now, though I never thought of it then. And, kind as it was of Aunt Jane, perhaps we should not have left him unprotected. You ought to have gone to school, Mab, because of your talent, and I should have stayed at home.”

They decided, however, after a few minutes, that it was needless to discuss this possibility now, so long after it had become an impossibility. And then they went upstairs to take off their travelling-dresses and make themselves feel at home. When they came down again, with their hair smooth, Cicely carrying her work-basket and Mab her sketch-book, and seated themselves in the old faded room, from which the sunshine had now slid away, as the sun got westward, a bewildered feeling took possession of them. Had they ever been absent? had anything happened since that day when Aunt Jane surprised them in their pinafores? The still house, so still in the deep tranquillity of the country, after the hum of their schoolroom life and the noises of a town, seemed to turn round with them, as they looked out upon the garden, upon which no change seemed to have passed. “I declare,” cried Mab, “there is exactly the same number of apples – and the same branch of that old-plum-tree hanging loose from the wall!”

Thus the first evening passed like a dream. Mr. St. John came from his study to supper, and he talked a little, just as he had been in the habit of talking long ago, without any allusion to the past. He told them a few pieces of news about the parish, and that he would like them to visit the school. “It has been very well looked after lately,” he said. Perhaps this meant by his wife – perhaps it did not; the girls could not tell. Then Betsy came in for prayers, along with a small younger sister of hers who had charge of the little boys; and by ten o’clock, as at Miss Blandy’s, the door was locked, and the peaceful house wrapped in quiet. The girls looked out of their window upon the soft stillness with the strangest feelings. The garden paths were clearly indicated by a feeble veiled moon, and the trees which thickened in clouds upon the horizon. There was not a sound anywhere in the tranquil place except the occasional bark of that dog, who somewhere, far or near, always indicates existence in a still night in the country. The stillness fell upon their souls. “He never asked what we were going to do,” said Mab, for they were silenced too, and spoke to each other only now and then, chilled out of the superabundance of their own vitality. “But he thinks with me that the children are to be our business in life,” said Cicely, and then they went to bed, taking refuge in the darkness. For two girls so full of conscious life, tingling to the finger points with active faculties and power, it was a chilly home-coming, yet not so unusual either. When the young creatures come home, with their new lives in their hands to make something of, for good or evil, do not we often expect them to settle down to the level of the calm old lives which are nearly worn out, and find fault with them if it is a struggle? Mr. St. John felt that it was quite natural his girls should come home and keep his house for him, and take the trouble of the little boys, and visit the schools – so naturally that when he had said, “Now you are here, we shall fall into our quiet way again,” it seemed to him that everything was said that needed to be said.

In the morning the children were found less inaccessible, and made friends with by dint of lumps of sugar and bits of toast, of which Mab was prodigal. They were very tiny, delicate, and colourless, with pale hair and pale eyes; but they were not wanting in some of the natural attractions of children. Charley was the backward one, and had little command of language. Harry spoke for both; and I will not say it was easy for these girls, unaccustomed to small children, to understand even him. Mr. St. John patted their heads and gave them a smile each by way of blessing; but he took little farther notice of the children. “I believe Annie, the little maid, is very kind to them,” he said. “I cannot bear to hear them crying, my dears; but now you are here all will go well.”

“But, papa,” said Cicely, “will it be right for us to stay at home, when you have them to provide for, and there is so little money?”

“Right for you to stay? Where could you be so well as at home?” said the curate, perturbed. The girls looked at each other, and this time it was Mab who was bold, and ventured to speak.

“Papa, it is not that. Supposing that we are best at home” (Mab said this with the corners of her mouth going down, for it was not her own opinion), “yet there are other things to consider. We should be earning something – ”

Mr. St. John got up almost impatiently for him. “I have never been left to want,” he said. “I have been young, and now I am old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. Providence will raise up friends for the children; and we have always had plenty. If there is enough for me, there is enough for you.”

And he went out of the room as nearly angry as it was possible for his mild nature to be. Cicely and Mab once more looked at each other wondering. “Papa is crazy, I think,” said Mab, who was the most self-assertive; but Cicely only heaved a sigh, and went out to the hall to brush his hat for him, as she remembered her mother used to do. Mr. St. John liked this kind of tendance. “You are a good girl, Cicely; you are just such another as your mother,” he said, as he took the hat from her; and Cicely divined that the late Mrs. St. John had not shown him this attention, which I think pleased her on the whole.

“But, papa, I am afraid Mab was right,” she said. “You must think it over, and think what is best for Mab.”

“Why should she be different from you?” said Mr. St. John, feeling in his breast pocket for the familiar prayer-book which lay there. It was more important to him to make sure it was safe, than to decide what to do with his child.

“I don’t know why, but we are different. Dear papa, you must think, if you please, what is best.”

“It is nonsense, Cicely; she must stay where she is, and make herself happy. A good girl is always happy at home,” said Mr. St. John; “and, of course, there is plenty – plenty for all of us. You must not detain me, my dear, nor talk about business this first morning. Depend upon it,” said Mr. St. John, raising his soft, feeble hand to give emphasis to his words, “it is always best for you to be at home.”

What a pity that children and women are not always convinced when the head of the house thus lays down the law! Cicely went back into the dining-room where they had breakfasted, shaking her head, without being aware of the gesture. “Why should I depend upon it?” she said. “Depend upon it! I may be quite willing to do it, for it is my duty; but why should I depend upon it as being the best?”

“What are you saying, Cicely?”

“Nothing, dear; only papa is rather odd. Does he think that two hundred a year is a great fortune? or that two of us, and two of them, and two maids (though they are little ones), and himself, can get on upon two hundred a year?”

“I must paint,” said Mab; “I must paint! I’ll tell you what I shall do. You are a great deal more like a Madonna than most of the women who have sat for her. I will paint a Holy Family from you and them– They are funny little pale things, but we could light them up with a little colour; and they are real babies, you know,” Mab said, looking at them seriously, with her head on one side, as becomes a painter. She had posed the two children on the floor: the one seated firmly with his little legs stretched out, the other leaning against him; while she walked up and down, with a pencil in her hand, studying them. “Stay still a moment longer, and I will give you a lump of sugar,” she said.

“Harry like sugar,” said the small spokesman, looking up at her. Charley said nothing. He had his thumb, and half the little hand belonging to it, in his mouth, and sucked it with much philosophy. “Or perhaps I might make you a peasant woman,” said Mab, “with one of them on your back. They are nature, Ciss. You know how Mr. Lake used to go on, saying nature was what I wanted. Well, here it is.”

“I think you are as mad as papa,” said Cicely, impatient; “but I must order the dinner and look after the things. That’s nature for me. Oh, dear – oh, dear! We shall not long be able to have any dinner, if we go on with such a lot of servants. Two girls, two boys, two maids, and two hundred a year! You might as well try to fly,” said Cicely, shaking her pretty head.

CHAPTER VII

NEWS

PERHAPS it had been premature of the girls to speak to their father of their future, and what they were to do, on the very first morning after their return; but youth is naturally impatient, and the excitement of one crisis seems to stimulate the activity of all kinds of plans and speculations in the youthful brain; and then perhaps the chill of the house, the rural calm of the place, had frightened them. Cicely, indeed, knew it was her duty and her business to stay here, whatever happened; but how could Mab bear it, she said to herself – Mab, who required change and novelty, whose mind was full of such hopes of seeing and of doing? When their father had gone out, however, they threw aside their grave thoughts for the moment, and dawdled the morning away, roaming about the garden, out and in a hundred times, as it is so pleasant to do on a summer day in the country, especially to those who find in the country the charm of novelty. They got the children’s hats, and took them out to play on the sunny grass, and run small races along the paths.

“Please, miss, not to let them run too much,” said little Annie, Betsy’s sister, who was the nurse, though she was but fifteen. “Please, miss, not to let ‘em roll on the grass.”

“Why, the grass is as dry as the carpet; and what are their little legs good for but to run with?” said Cicely.

Whereupon little Annie made up a solemn countenance, and said, “Please, miss, I promised missis – ”

Mab rushed off with the children before the sentence was completed. “That’s why they are so pale,” cried the impetuous girl; “poor little white-faced things! But we never promised missis. Let us take them into our own hands.”

“You are a good girl to remember what your mistress said,” said Cicely with dignity, walking out after her sister in very stately fashion. And she reproved Mab for her rashness, and led the little boys about, promenading the walks. “We must get rid of these two maids,” she said, “or we shall never be allowed to have anything our own way.”

“But you said they were good girls for remembering,” said Mab, surprised.

“So they were; but that is not to say I am going to put up with it,” said Cicely, drawing herself to her full height, and looking Miss St. John, as Mab asserted she was very capable of doing when she pleased.

“You are very funny, Cicely,” said the younger sister; “you praise the maids, and yet you want to get rid of them; and you think what ‘missis’ made them promise is nonsense, yet there you go walking about with these two mites as if you had promised missis yourself.”

“Hush!” said Cicely, and then the tears came into her eyes. “She is dead!” said this inconsistent young woman, with a low voice full of remorse. “It would be hard if one did not give in to her at first about her own little boys.”

After this dawdling in the morning, they made up their minds to work in the afternoon. Much as they loved the sunshine, they were obliged to draw down the blinds with their own hands, to the delight of Betty, to whom Cicely was obliged to explain that this was not to save the carpet. It is difficult to know what to do in such circumstances, especially when there is nothing particular to be done. It was too hot to go out; and as for beginning needlework in cold blood the first day you are in a new place, or have come back to an old one, few girls of eighteen and nineteen are so virtuous as that. One thing afforded them a little amusement, and that was to pull things about, and alter their arrangement, and shape the room to their own mind. Cicely took down a worked banner-screen which hung from the mantelpiece, and which offended her fastidious taste; or rather, she began to unscrew it, removing first the crackling semi-transparent veil that covered it. “Why did she cover them up so?” cried Cicely, impatiently.

“To keep them clean, of course,” said Mab.

“But why should they be kept clean? We are obliged to fade and lose our beauty. It is unnatural to be spick and span, always clean and young, and new. Come down, you gaudy thing!” she cried. Then with her hand still grasping it, a compunction seized her. “After all, why shouldn’t she leave something behind her – something to remember her by? She had as much right here as we have, after all. She ought to leave some trace of her existence here.”

“She has left her children – trace enough of her existence!” cried Mab.

Cicely was struck by this argument. She hesitated a minute, with her hand on the screen, then hastily detached it, and threw it down. Then two offensive cushions met her eye, which she put in the same heap. “The little boys might like to have them when they grow up,” she added, half apologetically, to herself.

And with these changes something of the old familiar look began to come into the faded room. Mab had brought out her drawing things, but the blinds were fluttering over the open windows, shutting out even the garden; and there was nothing to draw. And it was afternoon, which is not a time to begin work. She fixed her eyes upon a large chiffonier, with glass doors, which held the place of honour in the room. It was mahogany, like everything else in the house.

“I wonder what sort of a man Mr. Chester is?” she said; “or what he meant by buying all that hideous furniture – a man who lives in Italy, and is an antiquary, and knows about pictures. If it was not for the glass doors, how like a hearse that chiffonier would be. I mean a catafalque. What is a catafalque, Cicely? A thing that is put up in churches when people are dead? I hope Mr. Chester when he dies will have just such a tomb.”

“It is not so bad as the big bookcase in the study,” said Cicely; “certainly things are better now-a-days. If I had plenty of money, how I should like to furnish this room all over again, with bright young things, not too huge; little sofas that would move anywhere when you touched them, and soft chairs. They should be covered in amber – ”

“No – blue!” cried Mab.

“Soft amber – amber with a bloom of white in it – ”

“In this sunny room,” cried Mab. “What are you thinking of? No; it must be a cool colour – a sort of moonlighty blue – pale, pale; or tender fairy green.”

“What is fairy green? Amber is my colour – it would be lovely; of course I don’t mean to say it wouldn’t fade. But then if one were rich the pleasure would be to let it fade, and then have all the fun over again, and choose another,” said Cicely, with a sigh over this impossible delight.

“Things sometimes improve by fading,” said the artist. “I like the faded tints – they harmonize. Hush, Cicely! – oh, stop your tidying – there is some one at the door.”

“It cannot be any one coming to call so soon?” said Cicely, startled.

“But it is – listen! I can hear Betsy saying, ‘This way, ma’am; this way.’” And Mab closed her sketch-book, and sat very upright and expectant on her chair; while Cicely, throwing (I am ashamed to say) her spoils under a sofa, took up her needlework by the wrong end, and, putting on a portentous face of gravity and absorbed occupation, waited for the expected visitor.

A moment after the door was flung open, but not by Betsy; and Miss Maydew, flushed with her walk from the station, as when they had first seen her, with the same shawl on, and I almost think the same bonnet (but that was impossible), stood before them, her large white handkerchief in her hand. She was too hot to say anything, but dropped down on the first chair she came to, leaving the door open, which made a draught, and blew about her ribbons violently. “I know it is as much as my life is worth,” said Miss Maydew; “but, oh, how delicious it is to be in a draught!”