THE MISSES STANLEY.
The Misses Stanley were sitting up far into the night. They had been
prostrated in the morning by the sultry oppression of the coming
storm. Later, when it burst, and the blackened sky grew ablaze
with lightning, and the very earth was trembling at the deafening
thunder-claps, they fled to the cellar, closing and bolting the door,
in that unreasoning panic which seizes even very sensible people when
the heavens begin to utter their terrible voices; and there they
gasped, and sighed, and panted, and listened, forgetting even the
headache which a while before had nailed their heads to the pillow.
"Ah!" they would whisper to each other, "did you hear that?--and
that?--One of the chimneys has surely been struck! Can that be the
rattle of the falling bricks? Is the roof coming down, do you think?
Are we safe here?" and they caught each other's hands and pressed them
tightly, and leaned against the door with all their might, to keep it
shut against the danger.
"Do you hear that hissing? Has the house taken fire? Do you smell
smoke?" It was only the first heavy downpour of the rain upon the
resounding tin roof. The steady continuance of the monotone assured
them of that in time, as the thunder grew intermittent and less loud.
Even the hissing of the rain grew faint after a while, and there came
a breath of cooler air down even into the locked-up cellar.
The terror was past, and they crept out of their hole again into the
light, like the mice and the spiders and other timid folk. The storm
was over and they were happy and safe. They had been able to eat no
breakfast; dinner had been standing on the table cooling and getting
spoiled while they were trembling in the cellar. So they had tea, and
partook of it with relish. The air was purified by the storm; it was
reviving to breathe it, and the world, seen through the open windows,
though wet, was brightened and refreshed by the rain, like a young
girl fresh from the luxury of a good cry.
It was sweet to be alive now, and drink in the scented air, so crisp
and fresh, yet without a suspicion of cold; and a while since life had
been a burden. The ladies sat and breathed, and sighed, and toyed with
existence, and spoke softly to one another, and were silent; and
evening wore on and night came, and still it was too pleasant to move.
Their lamp was lighted--a dim one, with no garish gleam to disturb
enjoyment within, or lure the flapping night-moths and beetles from
without--and feeling hungry they thought they would have supper, a
most unusual thing. It was but strawberries and cakes with lemonade
and cold tea, but for them it was a carouse; they sat picking and
sipping for very long, forgetful of time, and most other things, and
bathed by gentle stirrings of the soothing air, restful and in soft
shadow, while in the moonlit garden without, the white radiance was
reflected and broken into a hundred glittering sparkles from every
dripping leaf.
"I declare," said the younger sister, "midnight is decidedly the most
enjoyable part of the day, at this time of year."
"It is long past midnight, Matilda," her sister answered, "I am afraid
to look what hour of the morning it must be."
"Morning? To-morrow morning? This is to-morrow then! I like it;
and if we go to bed it will be to-day when we get up again. I prefer
to-morrow myself. Let's sit up all night, Tookey dear, and remain in
the future 'till daylight does appear,' and turns it into to-day
again. Commonplace affair that sun, compared to the moon, and
disagreeably hot at this season, besides. I envy the owls, and mice,
and bats, and things, coming out at night and sleeping all day. _I_
can't sleep in the daytime."
"The more need to go to bed at night. Come, Tilly!--or how shall we
get up in the morning? Late rising puts everything out of joint for
all day, and bothers the poor servants sadly."
"Bother the servants! By all means, say I. 'Never do to-morrow what
should be done to-day.' You know that is a proverb! And this is
to-morrow. It was you who said so; so let us sit still. I think I have
proved my case."
"Pshaw, Matilda! don't be childish. And the downstairs windows still
to shut up! Bring the light, dear. We'll make the round, and see that
all is fast."
It was a nightly procession in which these two ladies walked through
all the rooms on the ground floor. Miss Penelope the elder--called
Tookey for short by her sister--went first, trying the locked doors,
closing and bolting the windows, while Matilda with a candle held
aloft, kept close beside her. It fluttered her heart to go into an
empty room after dark, and it caught her breath to remain alone in the
drawing-room while her sister made the rounds, so she accompanied her
close, always within touching distance, and ready to scream should
occasion arise. Last of all they closed the drawing-room windows, and
barred the heavy inside shutters, provided with bells, so that no
housebreaker should be able to enter without ringing; and then with
their candlesticks in their hands, having extinguished the lamp, they
stood taking a last look, as it were, on the scene of their waking
existence, before wending upstairs to sleep and forgetfulness,
when----
Bang! The sound seemed deafening, coming as it did so unexpectedly, in
the night stillness, with all the world slumbering save themselves.
Again! Not so loud this time, it seemed, with the ear already
attentive. It was a knock at the hall door. And now the bell was rung,
a jangling peal resounding through the house, and under cover of the
uproar there was a crunching on the gravel as of hasty steps.
The sisters looked at one another with parted lips, and eyes that
sought help and counsel and assurance each in the other's. Matilda
assuredly had neither strength nor wisdom for their joint support, but
her need was so great and she looked with such fervent trustfulness at
her sister, that Penelope felt she must brace herself up and take
courage for both, though her heart was faint within her. She was the
object of a faith which supported by its helpless reliance, and
stimulated her to effort that it might not prove misplaced. So
strength ere now has been bred of double weakness, though in this case
it was put forth but falteringly at first.
There was a shuffling now and a whispering in the lobby. Penelope held
the door handle and listened. Matilda threw her weight against the
door, expecting it would be burst open; but it was not, and thus they
stood breathlessly awaiting some unspecified terror which did not
arrive, till doubt grew too painful, and Penelope in very desperation
flung wide the door. Three pale faces were disclosed blinking at the
gleam of the ladies' candles, and Matilda screamed. An answering
scream was raised by the three pale faces startled by the sudden flash
of light in the darkened passage, and already prepared to be
frightened by anything which might happen.
"How very foolish!" said Miss Penelope, who, having wrought herself up
to do battle of some kind, had her nerves better in hand. "Do you not
see it is the servants? Awakened by the noise, they have come
downstairs, and seeing light in here at such an hour, supposed it was
a thief. Now we must see who is at the front door."
"No, Penelope! I implore you, do not!"
"Oh, ma'am," said the cook, "if anything happens to _you_ what will
become of _us?_" and the other maids looked deprecating in concert,
while even Miss Matilda ejaculated, "What, indeed?"
"We cannot stand here all night! And we could not go to bed with
burglars perhaps waiting on the doorstep till we are asleep."
"Think, Penelope, if they should burst in when we unbar the door!"
"They had better not. Is there not my father's gun?" and so saying she
stepped on a chair to reach down that redoubtable weapon from where it
rested on two brass hooks, high up over the fireplace in the hall.
There it had rested ever since the decease of the late lamented Deputy
Assistant Commissary General--called General for short, or perhaps for
honour--the parent of the Misses Stanley.
"Oh, Tookey! don't!" cried Miss Matilda. "It might go off and hurt
some one," and the maids drew up their shoulders to their ears, and
looked apprehensive in chorus.
"Nonsense!" answered Miss Stanley severely. "Do you not see I am
pointing it to the ceiling?"
"One never knows, such strange things happen with guns. The barrels
burst, they say, or else they go off, and shoot the people they have
no business to touch, and let others escape who really ought to have
been hit. Remember how poor Major Hopkins' gun went off, nobody knew
how, and killed papa's spaniel, and let the duck fly away. I shall
never forget how cross poor papa was when he came home, and he never
asked Major Hopkins to come again." And Miss Matilda looked regretful,
as does the Historic Muse when she registers the might-have-beens.
"Pray point the muzzle up the chimney, dear; it is safer."
Penelope, with a disdainful shrug, moved to the door, raised her
firearm to her shoulder, and motioned the maids to undo the
fastenings and open. They obeyed, and as the door flew back there
entered a puff of wind which blew out the candles and made everybody
scream--everybody except Miss Stanley. She, like a hero, stood to her
gun, and pulled the trigger--she pulled it frequently, in fact, but as
the piece was not loaded, that made no difference. Indeed, it was much
better, her timid companions were saved the dreadful bang, while she
herself had the heroic feeling of having shot a gang of burglars; that
is, she would have shot them if her gun had been loaded, and they had
been there to be shot. But they were not, fortunately for themselves.
There was no one there at all. The band of affrighted females came
slowly to realize the fact, as their panic subsided, and they re-lit
the candles. "But who," they began to inquire, "could it be, who had
knocked so loudly and rung the bell?" As their tremors abated they
ventured out upon the verandah, which ran round the house, to
reconnoitre. There was no one there, and again they grew uneasy. The
visitant must have concealed himself in the shrubbery, and if so, he
must certainly be evil-disposed. Miss Stanley took up her gun again;
she had no misgiving about handling it now, and it looked as
formidable as ever, for of course the man in the shrubbery could not
know that it was unloaded, and she made sure he would not put its
being so to the test.
"Here is a large parcel, ma'am!" cried the parlour-maid, "shall I
bring it in? It is covered with old matting and tied with a
shoe-string."
"Take care, Rhoda!" said Matilda. "Let us look at it first. I have
heard of thieves tying themselves up in parcels in order to be taken
into the houses they intended to rob. Perhaps you had better fire your
gun into this, Penelope; I have known that to be done in a story with
the best effects."
Miss Penelope came to look. "I think we may take this one in, Tilly,
without fear. If it contains a man he cannot be very big. See! I can
lift the bundle myself. Bring it in, Rhoda; we will examine it in the
dining-room."
"It must be living, ma'am! I see it moving. Will it bite?" and she
took it up suspiciously and with precaution.
A cry, small and plaintive, was now heard.
"Do you hear that?" said Miss Matilda, "mewing--I think. Can anybody
have brought us a cat and kittens? A practical joke I suppose they
think it. Yet I like kittens,--soft little balls of fluff and fun,"
she went on, putting on her gloves at the same time, "but strange cats
may bite or scratch. Very impertinent, was it not, of the senders?
They mean, I suppose, that we are old maids. Well! If we are, at least
it is from choice, and I venture to say we are more comfortably
situated than the husband or wife of this impertinent."
"Tush! sister," said Penelope, glancing to the servants standing at
the lower end of the table and full of curiosity. "Have you a
penknife? Quick! No cat ever mewed like that."
And now indeed it was a lusty cry, distinctly human and articulating
mamma. The string was cut, the wrappings were kicked away by the
struggling contents of the parcel, and a good-sized, healthy infant,
well nourished, well clad, flushing red in the opening paroxysm of a
big cry on waking, was disclosed to view.
"A little child!" cried Miss Matilda in transports.
"What a frightful din!" said Miss Stanley, putting her fingers in her
ears. "To think that anything so small should make so much noise! What
ever shall we do with it?"
"Give it some milk, of course; bathe it, put it to bed. That is
what they always do with babies, I believe. Cook! get hot water at
once--and a large basin--and some milk--and--and--everything else that
is necessary. Quick! you others, and help her," she added, observing
the lingering steps of the maids, yawning now, and utterly disgusted
and wishing themselves back in bed, though a moment ago they had been
all wakefulness and interest.
It was curious to see how Matilda took the lead, now that her
sympathies were appealed to, while her practical sister, the mistress
and manager of the establishment, stood aside bewildered and confused.
She took the child in her arms and walked up and down, dandling it,
singing, and purring forth floods of baby talk, till the little one
stopped short in the middle of its lament to look at her, and
ascertain who this voluble person might be. Then, finding she could
make out nothing by her scrutiny, she prepared to resume with
augmented vigour, but Matilda would not have it. She sat down with the
doubter in her lap, bent over it, and made a bower for it with her
curls, crooning more volubly than ever, and tickling it with the
ringlet points, till the astonished infant grew confused, forgot that
it had intended to scream, and presently was smiling and crowing and
pulling the ringlets like bell-ropes.
Miss Matilda's ringlets were perhaps her most noticeable
feature--long, waving, twining masses of falling hair; giving her face
a pensive and romantic expression which has long ceased to be
fashionable, though it once was greatly admired, as was also the
poetry of Moore and Mrs. Hemans about the same time. In her youth, and
that was not so many years before, an officer in Montreal--it was
there the family lived then--had told her she looked like a muse, and
not long after he was ordered away to the Crimean war. Her own father
was ordered there too, but he said he owed a higher duty to his
motherless daughters than to leave them, and he thought he owed it to
his own ease not to let himself be sent ranging over Asia Minor,
Syria, and Egypt, in search of transport mules and donkeys, and so he
left the Service. He lingered in Montreal after the troops were
withdrawn; but soon that community of busy traders grew insupportable
in the absence of his fellow-loungers; he bought a farm near Saint
Euphrase, and there established himself, carrying his daughters with
him. He had already, as he told them, sacrificed his prospects of
advancement to their need of a protector, and now it was for them to
yield the social comforts of town life, bury themselves in the
country, and with grateful assiduity make his home as comfortable, and
his rheumatism as little intolerable as possible. After the fall of
Sebastopol the troops returned to Canada, and "General" Stanley was
able from time to time to relieve the monotony of his retirement with
the society of old friends; but the officer who had called Matilda a
muse never re-appeared, and no other gentleman since had said
anything half as nice. So Matilda cherished her ringlets and her
recollections--not very painful ones--and lived tranquilly on, with no
event to mark the flight of years, till the death of her father, which
took place some three or four years before the time I write of. After
that the sisters lived on as before, only more retiredly still. Miss
Penelope developed considerable business faculty in managing their
affairs, and overlooking Jean Bruneau, the factotum on the farm; and
dropped some of the feminine helplessnesses of her youth, though she
was still as much in terror of thunder, burglars, fire and snakes as
ever. Matilda having less need to exert her powers, continued the same
ringletted damsel she had always been. She busied herself with her
flowers and her birds, a little music not too difficult or new, a
little poetry and fiction, and a good deal of kindness when the need
for it was made plain to her. Her youth was passing or had passed into
middle life, but the current of her days had been so even that she had
not observed their flight. She had had no cares, and her heart slept
peacefully, for it had never been awakened. Captain Lorrimer may have
called her a muse, and Major Hopkins may have looked in her eyes, but
these things had never been carried to a disturbing length; just
enough to afford a little pensive self-consciousness, when she read of
deserted maids, or Love's young dream, and make her fancy that she
understood it all, and ejaculate that "it was so true." Then she would
look up and shake her curls with a quite comfortable sigh, and her
prosaic sister would watch her admiringly, and wonder where the men's
eyes could have been that she was still unmarried. Perhaps it was well
for her that she was so. Perhaps it would be well, at least it would
be comfortable, for many of us if our hearts would sleep through
life, and leave digestion to do its work in peace. How sweet and
enjoyable to lead untroubled lives, free from the ecstasies alike of
joy and woe, as do the flowers, as did this "muse"--this "grass of
Parnassus"--basking in summer suns and drinking dews, without ambition
or desire or strife.
But this is wandering. We left Miss Penelope desirous of getting to
bed; and Miss Matilda engrossed in her new plaything.
"I shall certainly keep it, Penelope! The very thing of all others I
should have liked best to have."
"Is not that rather an odd thing to say?"
"That I am charmed to have found a living doll?--I think it is quite
natural. _You_ are too sensible, of course, but for other people--for
me--it seems the most natural thing in the world. You know I always
doted on dolls, especially when they could wink their eyes. This one
can do that, and lots of other things besides. It will be delightful.
And to think how I have been mourning the loss of my lame canary these
last few days! You would not believe the tears I have shed every time
I have looked at the empty cage, and how lonely I have felt; and here,
in the middle of the night, just when we are going to bed, arrives
this little pet! Is it not opportune? If I had awakened in the night,
I might have thought of poor dicky, and then I should certainly have
cried. Now I shall take this sweet little image with me, and if I
awake, it will be to think how I can make up to it the loss of its
mother; though indeed the mother who could find it in her breast to
cast her off in this disgraceful way can be no loss."