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!"
"Aunt Jane!" the girls cried, and rushed at her with unfeigned relief.
They were more familiar with her now than they had been four years ago.
They took off her great shawl for her, and loosed her bonnet strings.
"Papa told us you were coming," they cried; "but we did not hope for you
so soon. How kind of you to come to-day."
"Oh, my dears," said Aunt Jane, "I did not mean to come to-day; I came
to see how you were taking it; and what your papa means to do. As soon
as I saw it in the paper I thought, oh my poor, poor children, and that
helpless old man! What are they to do?"
"Do you mean about Mrs. St. John?" said Cicely, growing grave. "Papa is
very composed and kind, and indeed I can do all he wants. Aunt
Jane----"
"About Mrs. St. John? Poor woman, I have nothing to say against her--but
she is taken away from the evil to come," said Miss Maydew. "No, no, it
was not about Mrs. St. John I was thinking, it was about something much
more serious. Not that anything could be more serious than a death; but
in a worldly point of view!"
"What is it?" they both said in a breath. The idea of news was exciting
to them, even though, as was evident from their visitor's agitation, it
was disagreeable news they were about to hear. Miss Maydew drew with
much excitement from her pocket a copy of the _Times_, very tightly
folded together to enable it to enter there, and opened it with
trembling hands.
"There it is! Oh, my poor, poor children! imagine my feelings--it was
the very first thing I saw when I took up my paper this morning," she
said.
The girls did not immediately take in the full meaning of the intimation
which they read with two startled faces close together over the old
lady's shoulder. "At Castellamare, on the 15th July, the Rev. Edward
Chester, Rector of Brentburn, Berks."
"But we don't know him," said Mab, bewildered.
Cicely, I think, had a remark of the same kind on her lips; but she
stopped suddenly and clasped her hands together and gave a low cry.
"Ah, _you_ understand, Cicely!" said Miss Maydew, wiping her forehead
with her handkerchief; "now let us consult what is to be done. What is
the date? I was so agitated I never thought of the date! The 15th. Oh,
my dear, here is a fortnight lost!"
"But what can be done?" said Cicely, turning a pathetic glance upon the
old room which had seemed so melancholy to her yesterday, and the tons
of mahogany which she had just been criticising. How kind, and friendly,
and familiar they had become all at once; old, dear friends, who
belonged to her no more.
"Mr. Chester, the rector!" said Mab, with sudden apprehension. "Do you
mean that something will happen to papa?"
"There is this to be done," said the old lady, "your poor good father
has been here for twenty years; the people ought to be fond of him--I do
not know whether they are, for a parish is an incomprehensible thing, as
your poor dear grandfather always used to say--but they ought to be; I
am sure he has trudged about enough, and never spared himself, though I
never thought him a good preacher, so far as that goes. But he ought to
have a great many friends after living here for twenty years."
"But, Aunt Jane, tell us, tell us--what good will that do?"
"It might do a great deal if they would exert themselves. They might get
up a petition, for instance--at once--to the Lord Chancellor; they might
employ all their influence. It is not a rich parish, nor a large parish,
but there are always gentry in it. Oh, a great deal might be done if
only people would exert themselves! It is dreadful to think that a
fortnight has been lost."
Cicely, who was not much consoled by this hope, sat down with a very
pale countenance and a sudden constriction at her heart. She was almost
too much bewildered to realize all that it meant; enough lay on the
surface to fill her soul with dismay. Mab, who had less perception of
the urgent character of the calamity, was more animated.
"I thought you meant _we_ could do something," she said. "Oh, Aunt
Jane, could not we go to the Chancellor, if that is the man. The
parish? I don't see why they should take the trouble. It will not hurt
them. They will have a young, well-off man instead of an old, poor man.
Couldn't _we_ go to the Lord Chancellor, Aunt Jane?"
Miss Maydew's eyes lighted up for a moment. She seemed to see herself
approaching that unknown potentate as lovely ladies went to kings in the
days of romance, with a child in each hand. She felt how eloquent she
could be, how convincing. She felt herself capable of going down on her
knees and asking him whether the father of those two sweet girls was to
starve in his old age? All this appeared before her like a dream. But
alas! common sense soon resumed its sway; she shook her head. "I don't
know if that would do any good," she said.
"And _we_ could not get up a petition from the parish," said Cicely;
"whatever the people may do we cannot stir in it. Oh, Aunt Jane, how
foolish, how wrong of us never to think of this! I have thought that
papa was old and that we should have to maintain ourselves and the two
babies if--anything happened; but I never remembered that it all hung
upon some one else's life. Oh, it does seem hard!" cried the girl,
clasping her hands. "Papa has done all the work since ever I was born,
but yet he has only been here on sufferance, ready to be turned out at a
moment's notice. Oh, it is wrong, it is wrong!"
"Not exactly at a moment's notice," said Miss Maydew; "there is six
weeks or three months, or something, I forget how long."
And then there was a painful pause. Mab cried a little, having her
feelings most upon the surface, but Cicely sat quite silent and pale
with her eyes fixed upon the white blinds which flapped against the open
windows. All at once she got up and drew one of them up with a rapid
impatient hand. "I want air, I want light," she said in a stifled voice,
and put herself full in the intrusive sunshine, which made Miss Maydew
blink her old eyes.
"You will give yourself a headache, my dear, and that will not mend
matters," she said.
Cicely's heart was very heavy. She drew down the blind again and walked
up and down the room in her agitation. "Five of us to provide for
now--and that is not the worst; what is papa to do? How can he live with
everything taken from him? Oh, go to the Chancellor, or any one, if it
will do any good! It is terrible for papa."
It was while they were still in this agitated state that Betsy threw
open the door again, and Mrs. Ascott, of the Heath, one of the greatest
ladies in the parish, came in. She was not heated, like poor old Miss
Maydew, with walking, but fresh and well dressed from her carriage, and
tranquil as prosperity and comfort could make her. The girls made that
sudden effort, which women so often have to make, to receive her as if
nothing had happened, as if their minds were as easy and their
circumstances as agreeable as her own. She inquired about their journey,
about their school, about how they found their papa looking, about the
"sad trials" he had gone through, all in a sweet even tone, with smiles
or serious looks, as became her words, and hoped that now they had come
back she should see them often at the Heath. "You are the musical one,
Cicely," she said; "I know Mab draws. It is always nice when sisters
have each their distinction, that people can't mistake. My husband
always says girls are so like each other. What is your voice? contralto?
oh, a good second is such a want here. We are all more or less musical,
you know."
"My voice is not much one way or the other," said Cicely. "Mab sings
better than I do, though she is the one who draws."
"But I fear," said Miss Maydew, clearing her throat and interfering,
"unless something is done they will not be here long to be of use to any
one. We have just had news----"
"Ah, about poor Mr. Chester," said Mrs. Ascott, with the slightest of
glances at the stranger; "I saw it in the papers. Will that affect your
papa?"
"Unless"--Miss Maydew put herself forward squarely and
steadily--"something is done."
Mrs. Ascott looked at the old lady for the first time. She had thought
her an old nurse at first--for the good woman was not of a patrician
appearance, like the girls, who were St. Johns. "Unless--something is
done? I am sure we will all do anything that is possible. What can be
done?"
"Hush! my dear, hush! She does not know I belong to you," whispered
Miss Maydew. "I think a great deal might be done. If Mr. St. John's
friends were to get up a petition to the Lord Chancellor at
once--stating how long he had been here, and how much beloved he was,
and the whole state of the case. I don't personally know his lordship,"
said the old lady; "but he can't be a bad man or he never would have
risen to that position. I can't believe but what if the case were put
fully before him, he would give Mr. St. John the living. It seems so
much the most natural thing to do."
"Dear me, so it does!" said Mrs. Ascott. "How clever of you to have
thought of it. I will speak to my husband, and see what he says."
"And if there is any one else whom you can influence--to do good it
should be general--from the whole parish," said Miss Maydew--"from all
classes; and it ought to be done at once."
"To be sure," said Mrs. Ascott. "I assure you I will speak to my
husband." She got up to take her leave, a little frightened by the
vehemence of the stranger, and rather elated at the same time by the
sense of having a mission. Miss Maydew went with her to the very door.
"At once," she said, "at once! It is a fortnight already since the
rector died. If the parish means to do anything, you should not lose a
day."
"No: I see, I see! I will go at once and speak to my husband," cried the
visitor, escaping hastily. Miss Maydew returned to her seat breathing a
sigh of satisfaction. "There, girls! I have set it agoing at least. I
have started it. That was a nice woman--if she exerts herself, I don't
doubt that it will be all right. What a blessing she came while I was
here."
"I hope it is all right," said Cicely doubtfully; "but she is not
very----not very, _very_ sensible, you know. But she is always kind. I
hope she will not do anything foolish. Is that papa she is talking to?"
cried the girl alarmed, for there were sounds of commotion in the hall.
A silence fell upon even the chief conspirator, when she felt that Mr.
St. John was near--the possibility that her tactics might not be quite
satisfactory alarmed her. She withdrew into a corner, instinctively
getting the girls and a considerable mass of furniture between herself
and any one coming in at the door.
"I do not know what Mrs. Ascott is talking of," said the curate. "Is tea
ready, my dear, for I have a great deal to do? What have you been
putting into that good woman's head? She is talking of a petition, and
of the Lord Chancellor, and of bad news. I hope you are not a
politician, Cicely. What is it all about?"
"Here is Aunt Jane, papa," said Cicely, who was not more comfortable
than Miss Maydew. And the old lady had to get up and stretch out her
hand to Mr. St. John over the sofa, which was her bulwark in chief.
"But I wonder what she meant about bad news," he went on; "she seemed to
think it affected us. My dears, have you heard anything?"
"Oh, papa, very bad news," said Cicely with tears in her eyes. "It is in
the paper. Mrs. Ascott has seen it, and that is what we were talking
about. Oh, dear papa, don't be cast down. Perhaps it may not be so bad
as we think. Something may be done; or at the very worst we are both
able and willing to work--Mab and I."
"I don't know what you mean," said Mr. St. John, and he read the
announcement without much change of countenance. "Dear me, so he is gone
at last!" he said. "I have long expected this. His health has been
getting worse and worse for years. Poor Chester! has he really gone at
last? I remember him at college. He was a year younger than I, but
always sickly. Poor fellow! and he was a great deal better off than I
am, but never got the good of it. What a lesson it is, my dears!"
"But, oh, papa," cried Mab, who was the most impatient, "it is a great
deal more than a lesson. Think what consequences it will bring to
you--and us--and everybody."
He looked at her with a half smile. "Little Mab," he said, "teaching her
elders. Harry will begin soon. Yes, to be sure; we have got fond of this
place; it seems hard that we should have to go."
"But, papa, where shall we go? What shall we do? What is to become of
us?" said Cicely.
Mr. St. John shook his head. "If you will consider that I have only just
seen it this moment," he said, "you will see that I cannot be expected
all at once---- Was this what Mrs. Ascott was talking of? And what did
she mean by petitions, and the Lord Chancellor? I hope you have not been
putting anything into her head?"
There was a pause--the girls looked at each other, and blushed as if
they were the culprits; then Miss Maydew came boldly to the front. "It
was not the fault of the girls, Mr. St. John; on the contrary, they were
against it. But I thought there was no harm in saying that a petition
from the parish--to the Lord Chancellor--a well signed petition, as
there must be so many people here who are fond of you--and that no doubt
he would give you the living if he understood the circumstances."
"I a beggar for a living!" said Mr. St. John. "I who have never asked
for anything in my life!" A deep flush came upon his delicate pale face.
He had borne a great many more serious blows without wincing. Death had
visited him, and care dwelt in his house--and he had borne these
visitations placidly; but there was one flaw in his armour, and this
unlooked-for assault found it out. A flame of injured pride blazed up in
him, swift as fire and as glowing. "I thought I should have died without
this," he said with a groan, half fierce, half bitter. "What was it to
you? I never asked you for anything! Oh, this is hard--this is very hard
to bear."
In the memory of man it had never been known that Mr. St. John thus
complained before. The girls had never heard his voice raised or seen
the flush of anger on his face; and they were overawed by it. This kind
of sentiment too has always a certain fictitious grandeur to the
inexperienced. Never to ask for anything; to wait--patient merit
scorning all conflict with the unworthy--till such time as its greatness
should be acknowledged. This sounds very sublime in most cases to the
youthful soul.
"Well, Mr. St. John," said Miss Maydew, "you may say I have no right to
interfere; but if you had stooped to ask for something it might have
been a great deal better for your family. Besides, you have not asked
for anything now. I am not responsible for my actions to any one, and I
hope I may do either for you or anybody else whatever I please in the
way of service. If the Lord Chancellor does give you the living----"
Mr. St. John smiled. "I need not make myself angry," he said, "for it
is all sheer ignorance. The living is a college living. I don't know
what your ideas are on the subject, but the Lord Chancellor has as much
to do with it as you have. Cicely, let us have tea."
Miss Maydew shrivelled up upon her chair. She sat very quiet, and did
not say a word after this revelation. What she had done would have
troubled her mind little; but that she had done nothing after risking so
much was hard to bear. After this little ebullition, however, the curate
fell back into his usual calm. He spoke to them in his ordinary way. His
voice resumed its tranquil tone. He took his tea, which was a
substantial meal, doing justice to the bread and butter, and on the
whole showed signs of being more concerned for Mr. Chester than he was
for himself.
"I remember him at college--we were of the same college," he said; "but
he always the richest, much the best off. How little that has to say to
a man's happiness! Poor Chester was never happy; he might have been very
well here. How much I have had to be thankful for here! but it was not
his disposition. He was good-looking too when he was young, and did very
well in everything. Any one would have said he had a far better chance
for a happy life than I had."
The gentle old man grew quite loquacious in this contrast, though he was
in general the most humble-minded of men; and the two girls sat and
listened, giving wondering glances at each other, and blushing red with
that shame of affection which lively girls perhaps are particularly
disposed to feel when their parents maunder. This sort of domestic
criticism, even though unexpressed, was hard upon Mr. St. John, as upon
all such feeble good men. His last wife had adored him at all times, as
much when he was foolish as when he was wise. She would have given him
the fullest adhesion of her soul now, and echoed every word he said; but
the girls did not. They would have preferred to silence him, and were
ashamed of his gentle self-complacency. And yet it was quite true that
he felt himself a happier man than Mr. Chester, and higher in the scale
of merit though not of fortune; and the calm with which he took this
event, which was neither more nor less than ruin to him, was fine in its
way.
"But what are we to do, papa?" Cicely ventured to ask him, looking up
into his face with big anxious eyes, as he took his last cup of tea.
"My dear, we must wait and see," he said. "There is no very immediate
hurry. Let us see first who is appointed, and what the new rector
intends to do."
"But, Mr. St. John, you are a very learned man--and if it is a college
living"--suggested Miss Maydew.
"It is my own college, too," he said reflectively; "and I suppose I am
now one of the oldest members of it. It would not be amiss if they let
me stay here the rest of my days. But I never was distinguished. I never
was a Fellow, or anything. I never could push myself forward. No--we
must just wait and see what is going to happen. A few days or a few
weeks will make little difference. Compose yourselves, my dears," said
Mr. St. John. "I am not very anxious after all."
"I wonder if he would be anxious if you were all starving," cried Miss
Maydew, as the girls walked with her to the station in the evening. "Oh,
Cicely, I know I oughtn't to say anything to you about your papa. But if
he has not been anxious, others have been anxious for him. Your poor
mother! how she slaved to keep everything as it ought to be; and even
poor Miss Brown. It did not cost much to marry her--but it cost her her
life."
"Aunt Jane!" cried both the girls indignant.
"Well, my dears! She might have been living now, a respectable single
woman, doing her duty, as she was capable of doing; instead of which
what must she do but bring a couple of white-faced babies into the world
that nobody wanted, and die of it. Yes, she did die of it. You don't
understand these things--you are only children. And all because he was
what you call kind-hearted, and could not bear to see her cry, forsooth.
As if the best of us were not obliged both to cry ourselves and to see
others cry often enough! but they never thought what they were doing;
and the ones to suffer will be you."
"Aunt Jane, you ought not to speak so of papa."
"I know I shouldn't, my dear--and I humbly beg your pardons," said Aunt
Jane, drying her eyes.
"And we ought not to have left him unprotected," said Cicely, with a
sigh.