THE CURATE LEAVES BRENTBURN.
Cicely went to her room that night in a very nervous and disturbed
condition. It was her last night, too, in the house in which she had
been born; but she had no leisure to think of that, or to indulge in any
natural sentiments on the subject. She was very much alarmed about her
father, whose looks were so strange, but did not know what to do. That
he should take her for her mother was perhaps not wonderful at such a
moment of agitation; but it frightened her more than words can say. What
could she do? It was night, and there was no one in the house with her
but Betsy, who had for hours been buried in deepest slumbers; and even
had she been able to send for the doctor, what advance would that have
made?--for he was not ill, only strange, and it was so natural that he
should be strange;--and the good steady-going country doctor, acquainted
with honest practical fevers and rheumatism, what help could he bring to
a mind diseased? Cicely had changed her room in her new office of nurse,
and now occupied a small inner chamber communicating with that of the
two children. She was sitting there pondering and thinking when she
heard her father come upstairs. Then he appeared suddenly bending over
the children's little cots. He had a candle in his hand, and stooping
feebly, kissed the little boys. He was talking to himself all the time;
but she could not make out what he said, except, as he stood looking at
the children, "Poor things, poor things! God bless you." Cicely did not
show herself, anxiously as she watched, and he went out again and on to
his own room. He was going to bed quietly, and after all it might turn
out to be nothing; perhaps he had been dozing when he called her Hester,
and was scarcely awake. After this she intended to go to bed herself;
for she was sadly worn out with her long day's work and many cares, and
fell dead asleep, as youth unaccustomed to watching ever will do in the
face of all trouble. The house was perfectly still so long as she was
awake; not a sound disturbed the quiet except the breathing of Harry and
Charley, and the tap of the jessamine branches against her windows.
There was one last blossom at the end of a branch, late and long after
its neighbours, which shed some of its peculiar sweetness through the
open window. The relief was so great to hear her father come upstairs,
and to know that he was safe in his room, that her previous fright
seemed folly. She said her prayers, poor child! in her loneliness,
giving tearful thanks for this blessing, and fell asleep without time to
think of any bothers or sorrow of her own. Thus sometimes, perhaps,
those who have other people to carry on their shoulders avoid
occasionally the sharp sting of personal feeling--at least, of all the
sentiments which are of a secondary kind.
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.