THE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
The school to which Miss Maydew sent the girls was in the outskirts of a
seaside town, and it was neither the best nor the worst of such
establishments. There were some things which all the girls had to submit
to, and some which bore especially on the Miss St. Johns, who had been
received at a lower price than most of the others; but on the whole the
Miss Blandys were good women, and not unkind to the pupils. Cicely and
Mab, as sisters, had a room allotted to them in the upper part of the
house by themselves, which was a great privilege--a bare attic room,
with, on one side, a sloping roof, no carpet, except a small piece
before each small bed, and the most meagre furniture possible. But what
did they care for that? They had two chairs on which to sit and chatter
facing each other, and a little table for their books and their work.
They had a peep at the sea from their window, and they had their
youth--what could any one desire more? In the winter nights, when it was
cold sitting up in their fireless room, they used to lie down in those
two little beds side by side and talk, often in the dark, for the lights
had to be extinguished at ten o'clock. They had not spoken even to each
other of their father's marriage. This unexpected event had shocked and
bewildered them in the fantastic delicacy of their age. They could not
bear to think of their father as so far descended from his ideal
elevation, and shed secret tears of rage more than of sorrow when they
thought of their mother thus superseded. But the event was too terrible
for words, and nothing whatever was said of it between them. When the
next great occurrence, the birth of the two babies, was intimated to
them, their feelings were different. They were first indignant, almost
annoyed; then amused; in which stage Mab made such a sketch of Miss
Brown with a baby in each arm, and Mr. St. John pathetically looking on,
that they both burst forth into laughter, and the bond of reserve on
this event was broken; and then all at once an interest of which they
were half ashamed arose in their minds. They fell silent both together
in a wondering reverie, and then Mab said to Cicely, turning to her big
eyes of surprise--
"They belong to us too, I suppose. What are they to us?"
"Of course our half-brothers," said Cicely; and then there was another
pause, partly of awe at the thought of a relationship so mysterious, and
partly because it was within five minutes of ten. Then the candle was
put out, and they jumped into their beds. On the whole, perhaps, it was
more agreeable to talk of their father's other children in the dark,
when the half-shame, half-wonder of it would not appear in each face.
"Is one expected to be fond of one's half-brother?" said Mab doubtfully.
"There is one illusion gone," said Cicely, in all the seriousness of
sixteen. "I have always been cherishing the idea that when we were quite
grown up, instead of going out for governesses or anything of that sort,
we might keep together, Mab, and take care of papa."
"But then," said Mab, "what would you have done with Mrs. St. John? I
don't see that the babies make much difference. _She_ is there to take
care of papa."
On this Cicely gave an indignant sigh, but having no answer ready held
her peace.
"For my part, I never thought of that," said Mab. "I have always thought
it such a pity I am not a boy, for then I should have been the brother
and you the sister, and I could have painted and you could have kept my
house. I'll tell you what I should like," she continued, raising herself
on her elbow with the excitement of the thought; "I should like if we
two could go out into the world like Rosalind and Celia.
'Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?'"
"But you are not more than common tall," said Cicely, with unsympathetic
laughter; "you are a little, tiny, insignificant thing."
Mab dropped upon her pillow half-crying. "You have no feeling," she
said. "Aunt Jane says I shall go on growing for two years yet. Mamma
did----"
"If you please," said Cicely, "you are not the one that is like mamma."
This little passage of arms stopped the chatter. Cicely, penitent, would
have renewed it after an interval, but Mab was affronted. Their father's
marriage, however, made a great difference to the girls, even before the
appearance of the "second family;" the fact that he had now another
housekeeper and companion, and was independent of them affected the
imagination of his daughters, though they were scarcely conscious of it.
They no longer thought of going home, even for the longer holidays; and
settling down at home after their schooling was over had become all at
once impossible. Not that this change led them immediately to make new
plans for themselves; for the youthful imagination seldom goes so far
unguided except when character is very much developed; and the two were
only unsettled, uneasy, not quite knowing what was to become of them; or
rather, it was Cicely who felt the unsettledness and uneasiness as to
her own future. Mab had never had any doubt about hers since she was ten
years old. She had never seen any pictures to speak of, so that I
cannot say she was a heaven-born painter, for she scarcely understood
what that was. But she meant to draw; her pencil was to be her
profession, though she scarcely knew how it was to be wielded, and thus
she was delivered from all her sister's vague feelings of uncertainty.
Mab's powers, however, had not been appreciated at first at school,
where Miss Maydew's large assertions as to her niece's cleverness had
raised corresponding expectations. But when the drawing-master came with
his little stock of landscapes to be copied, Mab, quite untutored in
this kind, was utterly at a loss. She neither knew how to manage her
colours, nor how to follow the vague lines of the "copy," and I cannot
describe the humiliation of the sisters, nor the half disappointment,
half triumph, of Miss Blandy.
"My dear, you must not be discouraged; I am sure you did as well as you
could; and the fact is, we have a very high standard here," the
school-mistress said.
It happened, however, after two or three of these failures that Cicely,
sent by Miss Millicent Blandy on a special message into that retired
and solemn chamber, where Miss Blandy the elder sister sat in the
mornings supervising and correcting everything, from the exercises to
the characters of her pupils, found the head of the establishment with
the drawing-master looking over the productions of the week. He had
Mab's drawing in his hand, and he was shaking his head over it.
"I don't know what to say about the youngest Miss St. John. This figure
is well put in, but her sky and her distance are terrible," he was
saying. "I don't think I shall make anything of her."
When Cicely heard this she forgot that she was a girl at school. She
threw down a pile of books she was carrying, and flew out of the room
without a word, making a great noise with the door. What she ought to
have done was to have made a curtsy, put down the books softly by Miss
Blandy's elbow, curtsied again, and left the room noiselessly, in all
respects save that of walking backward as she would have done at Court.
Need I describe the look of dismay that came into Miss Blandy's face?
"These girls will be my death," she said. "Were there ever such
colts?--worse than boys." This was the most dreadful condemnation Miss
Blandy ever uttered. "If their aunt does not insist upon drawing, as she
has so little real talent, she had better give it up."
At this moment Cicely burst in again breathless, her hair streaming
behind her, her dress catching in the door, which she slammed after her.
"Look here!" she cried; "look here, before you say Mab has no talent!"
and she tossed down on the table the square blue-lined book, which her
sister by this time had almost filled. She stood before them glowing and
defiant, with flashing eyes and flowing hair; then she recollected some
guilty recent pages, and quailed, putting out her hand for the book
again. "Please it is only the beginning, not the end, you are to look
at," she said, peremptory yet appealing. Had Miss Blandy alone been in
the seat of judgment, she would, I fear, have paid but little attention
to this appeal; but the old drawing-master was gentle and kind, as old
professors of the arts so often are (for Art is Humanity, I think,
almost oftener than letters), and besides, the young petitioner was very
pretty in her generous enthusiasm, which affected him both as a man and
an artist. The first page at once gave him a guess as to the
inexpediency of examining the last; and the old man perceived in a
moment at once the mistake he had made, and the cause of it. He turned
over the first few pages, chuckling amused approbation. "So these are
your sister's," he said, and laughed and nodded his kind old head. When
he came to a sketch of Hannah, the maid-of-all-work at the rectory, the
humour of which might seem more permissible in Miss Blandy's eyes than
the caricatures of ladies and gentlemen, he showed it to her; and even
Miss Blandy, though meditating downright slaughter upon Cicely, could
not restrain a smile. "Is this really Mabel's?" she condescended to ask.
"As you say, Mr. Lake, not at all bad; much better than I could have
thought."
"Better? it is capital!" said the drawing-master; and then he shut up
the book close, and put it back in Cicely's hands. "I see there are
private scribblings in it," he said, with a significant look; "take it
back, my dear. I will speak to Miss Mabel to-morrow. And now, Miss
Blandy, we will finish our business, if you please," he said
benevolently, to leave time for Cicely and her dangerous volume to
escape. Miss Blandy was vanquished by this stratagem, and Cicely,
beginning to tremble at the thought of the danger she had escaped,
withdrew very demurely, having first piled up on the table the books she
had thrown down in her impetuosity. I may add at once that she did not
escape without an address, in which withering irony alternated with
solemn appeal to her best feelings, and which drew many hot tears from
poor Cicely's eyes, but otherwise so far as I am aware did her no harm.
Thus Mab's gifts found acknowledgment at Miss Blandy's. The old
drawing-master shook his fine flexible old artist hand at her. "You take
us all off, young lady," he said; "you spare no one; but it is so clever
that I forgive you; and by way of punishment you must work hard, now I
know what you can do. And don't show that book of yours to anybody but
me. Miss Blandy would not take it so well as I do."
"Oh, dear Mr. Lake, forgive me," said Mab, smitten with compunction; "I
will never do it again!"
"Never, till the next time," he said, shaking his head; "but, anyhow,
keep it to yourself, for it is a dangerous gift."
And from that day he put her on "the figure" and "the round"--studies,
in which Mab at first showed little more proficiency than she had done
in the humbler sphere of landscape; for having leapt all at once into
the exercise of something that felt like original art, this young lady
did not care to go back to the elements. However, what with the force of
school discipline, and some glimmerings of good sense in her own
juvenile bosom, she was kept to it, and soon found the ground steady
under her feet once more, and made rapid progress. By the time they had
been three years at school, she was so proficient, that Mr. Lake, on
retiring, after a hard-worked life, to well-earned leisure, recommended
her as his successor. So that by seventeen, a year before Mrs. St.
John's death, Mab had released Miss Maydew and her father from all
responsibility on her account. Cicely was not so clever; but she, too,
had begun to help Miss Blandy in preference to returning to the rectory
and being separated from her sister. Vague teaching of "English" and
music is not so profitable as an unmistakable and distinct art like
drawing; but it was better than setting out upon a strange world alone,
or going back to be a useless inmate of the rectory. As teachers the
girls were both worse off and better off than as pupils. They were worse
off because it is a descent in the social scale to come down from the
level of those who pay to be taught, to the level of those who are paid
for teaching--curious though the paradox seems to be; and they were
better off, in so far as they were free from some of the restrictions of
school, and had a kind of independent standing. They were allowed to
keep their large attic, the bare walls of which were now half covered by
Mab's drawings, and which Cicely's instinctive art of household
management made to look more cheery and homelike than any other room in
the house. They were snubbed sometimes by "parents," who thought the
manners of these Miss St. Johns too easy and familiar, as if they were
on an equality with their pupils; and by Miss Blandy, who considered
them much too independent in their ways; and now and then had
mortifications to bear which are not pleasant to girls. But there were
two of them, which was a great matter; and in the continual
conversation which they carried on about everything, they consoled each
other. No doubt it was hard sometimes to hear music sounding from the
open windows of the great house in the square, where their old
schoolfellow, Miss Robinson, had come to live, and to see the carriages
arriving, and all the glory of the ball-dresses, of which the two young
governesses got a glimpse as they went out for a stroll on the beach in
the summer twilight, an indulgence which Miss Blandy disapproved of.
"Now, why should people be so different?" Cicely said, moralizing; "why
should we have so little, and Alice Robinson so much? It don't seem
fair."
"And we are not even prettier than she is, or gooder--which we ought to
be, if there is any truth in compensation," said Mab, with a laugh.
"Or happier," said Cicely, with a sigh. "She has the upper hand of us in
everything, and no balance on the other side to make up for it. Stay,
though; she has very droll people for father and mother, and we have a
very fine gentleman for our papa."
"Poor papa!" said Mab. They interchanged moods with each other every
ten minutes, and were never monotonous, or for a long time the same.
"You may say why should people be so different," said Cicely, forgetting
that it was herself who said it. "There is papa, now; he is delightful,
but he is trying. When one thinks how altered everything is--and those
two little babies. But yet, you know, we ought to ask ourselves, 'Were
we happier at home, or are we happier here?'"
"We have more variety here," said Mab decisively; "there is the sea, for
one thing; there we had only the garden."
"You forget the common; it was as nice as any sea, and never drowned
people, or did anything dangerous; and the forest, and the sunset."
"There are sunsets here," said Mab,--"very fine ones. We are not
forgotten by the people who manage these things up above. And there is
plenty of work; and the girls are amusing, and so are the parents."
"We should have had plenty of work at home," said Cicely; and then the
point being carried as far as was necessary the discussion suddenly
stopped. They were walking along the sands, almost entirely alone. Only
here and there another group would pass them, or a solitary figure,
chiefly tradespeople, taking their evening stroll. The fresh sea-breeze
blew in their young faces, the soft dusk closed down over the blue
water, which beat upon the shore at their feet in the softest whispering
cadence. The air was all musical, thrilled softly by this hush of
subdued sound. It put away the sound of the band at Miss Robinson's ball
out of the girls' hearts. And yet balls are pleasant things at eighteen,
and when two young creatures, quite deprived of such pleasures, turn
their backs thus upon the enchanted place where the others are dancing,
it would be strange if a touch of forlorn sentiment did not make itself
felt in their hearts, though the soft falling of the dusk, and the hush
of the great sea, and the salt air in their faces, gave them a pleasure,
had they but known it, more exquisite than any mere ball, as a ball,
ever confers. One only knows this, however, by reflection, never by
immediate sensation; and so there was, as I have said, just a touch of
pathos in their voices, and a sense of superiority, comfortable only in
that it was superior, but slightly sad otherwise, in their hearts.
"I don't know what makes me go on thinking of home," said Cicely, after
a pause. "If we had been at home we should have had more pleasure, Mab.
The people about would have asked us--a clergyman's daughters always get
asked; and there are very nice people about Brentburn, very different
from the Robinsons and their class."
"We should have had no dresses to go in," said Mab. "How could we ever
have had ball-dresses off papa's two hundred a year?"
"Ball-dresses sound something very grand, but a plain white tarlatan is
not dear when one can make it up one's self. However, that is a poor way
of looking at it," said Cicely, giving a little toss to her head, as if
to throw off such unelevated thoughts. "There are a great many more
important things to think of. How will he ever manage to bring up the
two boys?"
Mab made a pause of reflection. "To be sure Aunt Jane is not their
relation," she said, "and boys are more troublesome than girls. They
want to have tutors and things, and to go to the university; and then
what is the good of it all if they are not clever? Certainly boys are
far more troublesome than girls."
"And then, if you consider papa," said Cicely, "that he is not very
strong, and that he is old. One does not like to say anything
disagreeable about one's papa, but what _did_ he want with those
children? Surely we were quite enough when he is so poor."
"There is always one thing he can do," said Mab. "Everybody says he is a
very good scholar. He will have to teach them himself."
"We shall have to teach them," said Cicely with energy; "I know so well
that this is what it will come to. I don't mean to teach them ourselves,
for it is not much Latin I know, and you none, and I have not a word of
Greek--but they will come upon us, I am quite sure."
"You forget Mrs. St. John," said Mab.
Cicely gave a slight shrug of her shoulders, but beyond that she did not
pursue the subject. Mrs. St. John's name stopped everything; they could
not discuss her, nor express their disapprobation, and therefore they
forbore religiously, though it was sometimes hard work.
"Blandina will think we are late," at last she said, turning round. This
was their name for their former instructress, their present employer.
Mab turned dutifully, obeying her sister's touch, but with a faint
sigh.
"I hope they will be quiet at the Robinsons as we are passing," the girl
said. "What if they are in full swing, with the 'Blue Danube' perhaps! I
hate to go in from a sweet night like this with noisy fiddles echoing
through my head."
Cicely gave a slight squeeze of sympathy to her sister's arm. Do not you
understand the girls, young reader? It was not the "Blue Danube" that
was being played, but the old Lancers, the which to hear is enough to
make wooden legs dance. Cicely and Mab pressed each other's arms, and
glanced up at the window, where dancing shadows and figures were
visible. They sighed, and they went into their garret, avoiding the
tacit disapproval of Miss Blandy's good-night. She did not approve of
twilight walks. Why should they want to go out just then like the
tradespeople, a thing which ladies never did? But if Miss Blandy had
known that the girls were quite saddened by the sound of the music from
the Robinsons', and yet could not sleep for listening to it, I fear she
would have thought them very improper young persons indeed. She had
forgotten how it felt to be eighteen--it was so long ago.
On the very next morning the news came of their stepmother's death. It
was entirely unexpected by them, for they had no idea of the gradual
weakness which had been stealing over that poor little woman, and they
were moved by deep compunction as well as natural regret. It is
impossible not to feel that we might have been kinder, might have made
life happier to those that are gone--a feeling experienced the moment
that we know them to be certainly gone, and inaccessible to all
kindness. "Oh, poor Mrs. St. John!" said Mab, dropping a few natural
tears. Cicely was more deeply affected. She was the eldest and had
thought the most; as for the young artist, her feeling ran into the tips
of her fingers, and got expansion there; but Cicely had no such medium.
She went about mournfully all day long, and in the evening Mab found her
seated at the window of their attic, looking out with her eyes big with
tears upon the darkening sea. When her sister touched her on the
shoulder Cicely's tears fell. "Oh, poor Miss Brown!" she said, her heart
having gone back to the time when they had no grievance against their
kind little governess. "Oh, Mab, if one could only tell her how one was
sorry! if she could only see into my heart now!"
"Perhaps she can," said Mab, awe-stricken and almost under her breath,
lifting her eyes to the clear wistful horizon in which the evening star
had just risen.
"And one could have said it only yesterday!" said Cicely, realizing for
the first time that mystery of absolute severance; and what light
thoughts had been in their minds yesterday! Sighs for Alice Robinson's
ball, depression of soul and spirit caused by the distant strains of the
Lancers, and the "Blue Danube"--while this tragedy was going on, and the
poor soul who had been good to them, but to whom they had not been good,
was departing, altogether and for ever out of reach. Cicely in her
sorrow blamed herself unjustly, as was natural, and mourned for the
mystery of human shortsightedness as well as for Mrs. St. John. But I do
not mean to say that this grief was very profound after the first sting,
and after that startling impression of the impossibility of further
intercourse was over. The girls went out quietly in the afternoon, and
bought black stuff to make themselves mourning, and spoke to each other
in low voices and grave tones. Their youthful vigour was subdued--they
were overawed to feel as it were the wings of the great Death-Angel
overshadowing them. The very sunshine looked dim, and the world
enveloped in a cloud. But it was within a week or two of Miss Blandy's
"breaking up," and they could not go away immediately. Miss Blandy half
audibly expressed her satisfaction that Mrs. St. John was only their
step-mother. "Had she been their own mother, what should we have done?"
she said. So that it was not till the end of July, when the
establishment broke up, that the girls were at last able to get home.