THE PARISH SCHOOLMISTRESS.
I will not follow all the intermediate steps, and tell how the curate's
family left their home, and went to London; or how Miss Maydew made the
most conscientious effort to accustom herself to the little boys, and to
contemplate the possibility of taking the oversight of them. They were
not noisy, it is true; but that very fact alarmed Aunt Jane, who
declared that, had they been "natural children," always tumbling about,
and making the walls ring, she could have understood them. Perhaps had
they been noisy, she would have felt at once the superiority of "quiet
children." As it was, the two little tiny, puny old men appalled the old
lady, who watched them with fascinated eyes, and a visionary terror,
which grew stronger every day. Sometimes she would jump up in a passion
and flee to her own room to take breath, when the thought of having them
to take care of came suddenly upon her. And thus it came about that her
opposition to Cicely's scheme gradually softened. It was a bitter pill
to her. To think of a Miss St. John, Hester's child, dropping into the
low degree of a parish schoolmistress, went to her very heart; but what
was to be done? How could she oppose a thing Cicely had set her heart
upon? Cicely was not one to make up a scheme without some reason in it;
and you might as well (Miss Maydew said to herself) try to move St.
Paul's, when the girl had once made up her mind. I do not think Cicely
was so obstinate as this, but it was a comfort to Miss Maydew to think
so. And after everybody had got over their surprise at the idea, Miss
St. John was duly installed as the schoolmistress at Brentburn. The few
little bits of furniture which had belonged to them in the rectory--the
children's little beds, the old faded carpets, etc.--helped to furnish
the schoolmistress's little house. Cicely took back the little Annie
whom she had sent away from the rectory for interfering with her own
authority, but whose devotion to the children was invaluable now, and no
later than October settled down to this curious new life. It was a very
strange life. The schoolmistress's house was a new little square house
of four rooms, with no beauty to recommend it, but with little garden
plots in front of it, and a large space behind where the children could
play. The little kitchen, the little parlour, the two little bedrooms
were all as homely as could be. Cicely had the old school-room piano,
upon which her mother had taught her the notes, and which Miss Brown had
shed tears over on that unfortunate day when Mr. St. John proposed to
marry her rather than let her go back to the Governesses' Institute--and
she had a few books. These were all that represented to her the more
beautiful side of life: but, at nineteen, fortunately life itself is
still beautiful enough to make up for many deprivations, and she had a
great deal to do. As for her work, she said, it was quite as pleasant to
teach the parish children as to teach the little ladies at Miss
Blandy's; and the "parents" did not look down upon her, which was
something gained.
And it was some time before Cicely awoke to the evident fact that, if
the parents did not look down upon her, her old acquaintances were much
embarrassed to know how to behave to her. Mrs. Ascott had gone to see
her at once on her arrival, and had been very kind, and had hoped they
would see a great deal of her. On two or three occasions after she sent
an invitation to tea in the evening, adding always, "We shall be quite
alone." "Why should they be always quite alone?" the girl said to
herself; and then she tried to think it was out of consideration for her
mourning. But it soon became visible enough what Mrs. Ascott meant, and
what all the other people meant. Even as the curate's daughter Cicely
had but been a girl whom they were kind to; now she was the parish
schoolmistress--"a very superior young person, quite above her
position," but belonging even by courtesy to the higher side no more.
She was not made to feel this brutally. It was all quite gently, quite
prettily done; but by the time spring came, brightening the face of the
country, Cicely was fully aware of the change in her position, and had
accepted it as best she could. She was still, eight months after her
father's death--so faithful is friendship in some cases--asked to tea,
when they were quite alone at the Heath; but otherwise, by that time,
most people had ceased to take any notice of her. She dropped out of
sight except at church, where she was only to be seen in her plain black
dress in her corner among the children; and though the ladies and
gentlemen shook hands with her still, when she came in their way, no one
went out of his or her way to speak to the schoolmistress. It would be
vain to say that there was no mortification involved in this change.
Cicely felt it in every fibre of her sensitive frame, by moments; but
fortunately her temperament was elastic, and she possessed all the
delicate strength which is supposed to distinguish "blood." She was
strong, and light as a daisy, jumping up under the very foot that
crushed her. This kind of nature makes its possessor survive and
surmount many things that are death to the less elastic; it saves from
destruction, but it does not save from pain.
As for Mr. Mildmay, it was soon made very apparent to him that, for him
at his age to show much favour or friendship to the schoolmistress at
hers, was entirely out of the question. He had to visit the school, of
course, in the way of his duty, but to visit Cicely was impossible.
People even remarked upon the curious frequency with which he passed the
school. Wherever he was going in the parish (they said), his road seemed
to turn that way, which, of course, was highly absurd, as every
reasonable person must see. There was a side window by which the curious
passer-by could see the interior of the school as he passed, and it was
true that the new rector was interested in that peep. There were the
homely children in their forms, at their desks, or working in the
afternoon at their homely needlework: among them, somewhere, sometimes
conning little lessons with portentous gravity, the two little boys in
their black frocks, and the young school-mistress seated at her table;
sometimes (the spy thought) with a flush of weariness upon her face. The
little house was quite empty during the school-hours; for Annie was a
scholar too, and aspiring to be pupil-teacher some day, and now as
reverent of Miss St. John as she had once been critical. Mildmay went on
his way after that peep with a great many thoughts in his heart. It
became a kind of necessity to him to pass that way, to see her at her
work. Did she like it, he wondered? How different it was from his own!
how different the position--the estimation of the two in the world's
eye! He who could go and come as he liked, who honoured the parish by
condescending to become its clergyman, and to whom a great many little
negligences would have been forgiven, had he liked, in consequence of
his scholarship, and his reputation, and his connections. "We can't
expect a man like Mildmay, fresh from a University life, to go pottering
about among the sick like poor old St. John," Mr. Ascott would say.
"That is all very well, but a clergyman here and there who takes a high
position for the Church in society is more important still." And most
people agreed with him; and Roger Mildmay went about his parish with his
head in the clouds, still wondering where life was--that life which
would string the nerves and swell the veins, and put into man the soul
of a hero. He passed the school-room window as often as he could, in
order to see it afar off--that life which seemed to him the greatest of
all things; but he had not yet found it himself. He did all he could,
as well as he knew how, to be a worthy parish priest. He was very kind
to everybody; he went to see the sick, and tried to say what he could to
them to soothe and console them. What could he say? When he saw a man of
his own age growing into a gaunt great skeleton with consumption, with a
wistful wife looking on, and poor little helpless children, what could
the young rector say? His heart would swell with a great pang of pity,
and he would read the prayers with a faltering voice, and, going away
wretched, would lavish wine and soup, and everything he could think of,
upon the invalid; but what could he _say_ to him, he whose very health
and wealth and strength and well-being seemed an insult to the dying?
The dying did not think so, but Mildmay did, whose very soul was wrung
by such sights. Then, for lighter matters, the churchwardens and the
parish business sickened him with their fussy foolishness about trifles;
and the careful doling out of shillings from the parish charities would
have made him furious, had he not known that his anger was more foolish
still. For his own part, he lavished his money about, giving it to
everybody who told him a pitiful story, in a reckless way, which, if
persevered in, would ruin the parish. And when any one went to him for
advice, he had to bite his lip in order not to say the words which were
on the very tip of his tongue longing to be said, and which were, "Go to
Cicely St. John at the school and ask. It is she who is living, not me.
I am a ghost like all the rest of you." This was the leading sentiment
in the young man's mind.
As for Cicely, she had not the slightest notion that any one thought of
her so, or thought of her at all, and sometimes as the excitement of the
beginning died away she felt her life a weary business enough. No
society but little Harry, who always wanted his tea, and Charley, with
his thumb in his mouth; and those long hours with the crowd of little
girls around her, who were not amusing to have all day long as they used
to be for an hour now and then, when the clergyman's daughter went in
among them, received by the schoolmistress curtsying, and with smiles
and bobs by the children, and carrying a pleasant excitement with her.
How Mab and she had laughed many a day over the funny answers and
funnier questions; but they were not funny now. When Mab came down, now
and then, from Saturday to Monday, with all her eager communications
about her work, Cicely remembered that she too was a girl, and they were
happy enough; but in the long dull level of the days after Mab had gone
she used to think to herself that she must be a widow without knowing
it, left after all the bloom of life was over with her children to work
for. "But even that would be better," Cicely said to herself; "for then,
at least, I should be silly about the children, and think them angels,
and adore them." Even that consolation did not exist for her. Mab was
working very hard, and there had dawned upon her a glorious prospect,
not yet come to anything, but which might mean the height of good
fortune. Do not let the reader think less well of Mab because this was
not the highest branch of art which she was contemplating. It was not
that she hoped at eighteen and a half to send some great picture to the
Academy, which should be hung on the line, and at once take the world by
storm. What she thought of was the homelier path of illustrations. "If,
perhaps, one was to take a little trouble, and try to find out what the
book means, and how the author saw a scene," Mab said; "they don't do
that in the illustrations one sees: the author says one thing, the
artist quite another--that, I suppose, is because the artist is a great
person and does not mind. But I am nobody. I should try to make out what
the reading meant, and follow that." This was her hope, and whether she
succeeds or not, and though she called a book "the reading," those who
write will be grateful to the young artist for this thought. "Remember I
am the brother and you are the sister," cried Mab. It was on the way to
the station on a Sunday evening--for both of the girls had to begin work
early next morning--that this was said. "And as soon as I make money
enough you are to come and keep my house." Cicely kissed her, and went
through the usual process of looking for a woman who was going all the
way to London in one of the carriages. This was not very like the
brother theory, but Mab was docile as a child. And then the elder sister
walked home through the spring darkness with her heart full, wondering
if that reunion would ever be.
Mr. Mildmay had been out that evening at dinner at the Ascotts, where
he very often went on Sunday. The school was not at all in the way
between the Heath and the rectory, yet Cicely met him on her way back.
It was a May evening, soft and sweet, with the bloom of the hawthorn on
all the hedges, and Cicely was walking along slowly, glad to prolong as
much as possible that little oasis in her existence which Mab's visit
made. She was surprised to hear the rector's voice so close to her. They
walked on together for a few steps without finding anything very
particular to say. Then each forestalled the other in a question.
"I hope you are liking Brentburn?" said Cicely.
And Mr. Mildmay, in the same breath, said: "Miss St. John, I hope you do
not regret coming to the school?"
Cicely, who had the most composure, was the first to reply. She laughed
softly at the double question.
"It suits me better than anything else would," she said. "I did not
pretend to take it as a matter of choice. It does best in my
circumstances; but you, Mr. Mildmay?"
"I want so much to know about you," he said, hurriedly. "I have not
made so much progress myself as I hoped I should; but you? I keep
thinking of you all the time. Don't think me impertinent. Are you happy
in it? Do you feel the satisfaction of living, as it seems to me you
must?"
"Happy?" said Cicely, with a low faint laugh. Then tears came into her
eyes. She looked at him wistfully, wondering. He so well off, she so
poor and restricted. By what strange wonder was it that he put such a
question to her? "Do you think I have much cause to be happy?" she said;
then added hastily, "I don't complain, I am not _un_happy--we get on
very well."
"Miss St. John," he said, "I have spoken to you about myself before now.
I came here out of a sort of artificial vegetation, or at least, so I
felt it, with the idea of getting some hold upon life--true life. I
don't speak of the misery that attended my coming here, for that, I
suppose, was nobody's fault, as people say; and now I have settled down
again. I have furnished my house, made what is called a home for myself,
though an empty one; and lo, once more I find myself as I was at Oxford,
looking at life from outside, spying upon other people's lives, going
to gaze at it enviously as, I do at you through the end window----"
"Mr. Mildmay!" Cicely felt her cheeks grow hot, and was glad it was dark
so that no one could see. "I am a poor example," she said, with a smile.
"I think, if you called it vegetation with me, you would be much more
nearly right than when you used that word about your life at Oxford,
which must have been full of everything impossible to me. Mine is
vegetation; the same things to be done at the same hours every day; the
poor little round of spelling and counting, never getting beyond the
rudiments. Nobody above the age of twelve, or I might say of four, so
much as to talk to. I feel I am living to-night," she added, in a more
lively tone, "because Mab has been with me since yesterday. But
otherwise--indeed you have made a very strange mistake."
"It is you who are mistaken," said the young rector, warmly. "The rest
of us are ghosts; what are we all doing? The good people up there," and
he pointed towards the Heath, "myself, almost everybody I know? living
for ourselves--living to get what we like for ourselves, to make
ourselves comfortable--to improve ourselves, let us say, which is the
best perhaps, yet despicable like all the rest. Self-love, self-comfort,
self-importance, self-culture, all of them one more miserable, more
petty than the other--even self-culture, which in my time I have
considered divine."
"And it is, I suppose, isn't it?" said Cicely. "It is what in our humble
feminine way is called improving the mind. I have always heard that was
one of the best things in existence."
"Do you practise it?" he asked, almost sharply.
"Mr. Mildmay, you must not be hard upon me--how can I? Yes, I should
like to be able to pass an examination and get a--what is it
called?--_diplôme_, the French say. With that one's chances are so much
better," said Cicely, with a sigh; "but I have so little time."
How the young man's heart swelled in the darkness!
"Self-culture," he said, with a half laugh, "must be disinterested, I
fear, to be worthy the name. It must have no motive but the advancement
of your mind for your own sake. It is the culture of you for you, not
for what you may do with it. It is a state, not a profession."
"That is harder upon us still," said Cicely. "Alas! I shall never be
rich enough nor have time enough to be disinterested. Good-night, Mr.
Mildmay; that is the way to the rectory."
"Are you tired of me so soon?"
"Tired of you?" said Cicely, startled; "oh no! It is very pleasant to
talk a little; but that is your way."
"I should like to go with you to your door, please," he said; "this is
such an unusual chance. Miss St. John, poor John Wyborn is dying; he has
four children and a poor little wife, and he is just my age."
There was a break in the rector's voice that made Cicely turn her face
towards him and silently hold out her hand.
"What am I to say to them?" he cried; "preach patience to them? tell
them it is for the best? I who am not worthy the poor bread I eat, who
live for myself, in luxury, while he--ay, and you----"
"Tell them," said Cicely, the tears dropping from her eyes, "that God
sees all--that comforts them the most; that He will take care of the
little ones somehow and bring them friends. Oh, Mr. Mildmay, it is not
for me to preach to you; I know what you mean; but they, poor souls,
don't go thinking and questioning as we do--and that comforts them the
most. Besides," said Cicely, simply, "it is true; look at me--you spoke
of me. See how my way has been made plain for me! I did not know what I
should do; and now I can manage very well, live, and bring up the
children; and after all these are the great things, and not pleasure,"
she added, with a soft little sigh.
"The children!" he said. "There is something terrible at your age to
hear you speak so. Why should you be thus burdened--why?"
"Mr. Mildmay," said Cicely, proudly, "one does not choose one's own
burdens. But now that I have got mine I mean to bear it, and I do not
wish to be pitied. I am able for all I have to do."
"Cicely!" he cried out, suddenly interrupting her, bending low, so that
for the moment she thought he was on his knees, "put it on my shoulders!
See, they are ready; make me somebody in life, not a mere spectator.
What! are you not impatient to see me standing by looking on while you
are working? I am impatient, and wretched, and solitary, and
contemptible. Put your burden on me, and see if I will not bear it!
Don't leave me a ghost any more!"
"Mr. Mildmay!" cried Cicely, in dismay. She did not even understand what
he meant in the confusion of the moment. She gave him no answer,
standing at her own door, alarmed and bewildered; but only entreated him
to leave her, not knowing what to think. "Please go, please go; I must
not ask you to come in," said Cicely. "Oh, I know what you mean is kind,
whatever it is; but please, Mr. Mildmay, go! Good-night!"
"Good-night!" he said. "I will go since you bid me; but I will come back
to-morrow for my answer. Give me a chance for life."
"What does he mean by life?" Cicely said to herself, as, trembling and
amazed, she went back into her bare little parlour, which always looked
doubly bare after Mab had gone. Annie had heard her coming, and had
lighted the two candles on the table; but though it was still cold,
there was no fire in the cheerless little fireplace. The dark walls,
which a large cheerful lamp could scarcely have lit, small as the room
was, stood like night round her little table, with those two small
sparks of light. A glass of milk and a piece of bread stood ready on a
little tray, and Annie had been waiting with some impatience her young
mistress's return in order to get to bed. The little boys were asleep
long ago, and there was not a sound in the tiny house as Cicely sat down
to think, except the sound of Annie overhead, which did not last long.
Life! Was this life, or was he making a bad joke at her expense? What
did he mean? It would be impossible to deny that Cicely's heart beat
faster and faster as it became clearer and clearer to her what he did
mean; but to talk of life! Was this life--this mean, still, solitary
place, which nobody shared, which neither love nor fellowship
brightened? for even the children, though she devoted her life to them,
made no warm response to Cicely's devotion. She sat till far into the
night thinking, wondering, musing, dreaming, her heart beating, her head
buzzing with the multitude of questions that crowded upon her. Life! It
was he who was holding open to her the gates of life; the only life she
knew, but more attractive than she had ever known it. Cicely was as
much bewildered by the manner of his appeal as by its object. Could
he--love her? Was that the plain English of it? Or was there any other
motive that could make him desirous of taking her burden upon his
shoulders? Could she, if a man did love her, suffer him to take such a
weight on his shoulders? And then--she did not love him. Cicely said
this to herself faltering. "No, she had never thought of loving him. She
had felt that he understood her. She had felt that he was kind when many
had not been kind. There had been between them rapid communications of
sentiment, impulses flashing from heart to heart, which so often
accompany very close relations. But all that is not being in love,"
Cicely said to herself. Nothing could have taken her more utterly by
surprise; but the surprise had been given, the shock received. Its first
overpowering sensation was over, and now she had to look forward to the
serious moment when this most serious thing must be settled, and her
reply given.
Cicely did not sleep much that night. She did not know very well what
she was doing next morning, but went through her work in a dazed
condition, fortunately knowing it well enough to go on mechanically,
and preserving her composure more because she was partially stupified
than for any other reason. Mr. Mildmay was seen on the road by the last
of the little scholars going away, who made him little bobs of curtsies,
and of whom he asked where Miss St. John was?
"Teacher's in the school-room," said one unpleasant little girl.
"Please, sir," said another, with more grace or genius, "Miss Cicely's
ain't come out yet. She's a-settling of the things for to-morrow."
Upon this young woman the rector bestowed a sixpence and a smile. And
then he went into the school-room, the place she had decided to receive
him in. The windows were all open, the desks and forms in disorder, the
place as mean and bare as could be, with the maps and bright-coloured
pictures of animal history on the unplastered walls. Cicely stood by her
own table, which was covered with little piles of plain needle-work, her
hand resting upon the table, her heart beating loud. What was she to say
to him? The truth somehow, such as it really was; but how?
But Mr. Mildmay had first a great deal to say. He gave her the history
of his life since August, and the share she had in it. He thought now,
and said, that from the very first day of his arrival in Brentburn, when
she looked at him like an enemy, what he was doing now had come into his
mind; and on this subject he was eloquent, as a man has a right to be
once in his life, if no more. He had so much to say, that he forgot the
open public place in which he was telling his love-tale, and scarcely
remarked the little response she made. But when it came to her turn to
reply, Cicely found herself no less impassioned, though in a different
way.
"Mr. Mildmay," she said, "there is no equality between us. How can you,
such a man as you, speak like this to a girl such as I am? Don't you see
what you are doing--holding open to me the gates of Paradise; offering
me back all I have lost; inviting me to peace out of trouble, to rest
out of toil, to ease and comfort, and the respect of the world."
"Cicely!" he said; he was discouraged by her tone. He saw in it his own
fancy thrown back to him, and for the first time perceived how fantastic
that was. "You do not mean," he said, faltering, "that to work hard as
you are doing, and give up all the pleasure of existence, is necessary
to your--your--satisfaction in your life?"
"I don't mean that," she said simply; "but when you offer to take up my
burden, and to give me all your comforts, don't you see that one
thing--one great thing--is implied to make it possible? Mr. Mildmay, I
am not--in love with you," she added, in a low tone, looking up at him,
the colour flaming over her face.
He winced, as if he had received a blow; then recovering himself,
smiled. "I think I have enough for two," he said, gazing at her, as pale
as she was red.
"But don't you see, don't you see," cried Cicely passionately, "if it
was you, who are giving everything, that was not in love, it would be
simple; but I who am to accept everything, who am to put burdens on you,
weigh you down with others beside myself, how can I take it all without
loving you? You see--you see it is impossible!"
"Do you love any one else?" he asked, too much moved for grace of
speech, taking the hand she held up to demonstrate this impossibility.
She looked at him again, her colour wavering, her eyes filling, her lips
quivering.
"Unless it is you--nobody!" she said.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
Cicily, with scorn.=> Cicely, with scorn. {pg 94}
manner a speech=> manner of speech {pg 209}
something that might he done=> something that might be done {pg 231}
with this comfort her in soul=> with this comfort in her soul {pg 290}
like a gispy=> like a gipsy {pg 294}
Mab was lost in amaze=> Mab was lost in a maze {pg 327}
End of Project Gutenberg's The Curate in Charge, by Margaret Oliphant