Маргарет Олифант
The Curate in Charge
Cicely went back again to her seat trembling with the excitement of the moment, and then said to herself, what a fool she was! but, oh! what a much greater fool Miss Brown had been to leave this legacy of trouble to two girls who had never done any harm to her. “Though, I suppose,” Cicely added to herself with a sense of justice, “she was not thinking about us.” And indeed it was not likely that poor Mrs. St. John had brought these babies into the world solely to bother her husband’s daughters. Poor Cicely, who had a thousand other things to do, and who already felt that it was impolitic, though necessary, to dismiss Annie, pondered long, gazing at those pale-faced and terrible infants, how she was to win them over, which looked as hard as any of her other painful pieces of business. At last some kind fairy put it into her head to sing: at which the two turned round once more upon their bases solemnly, and stared at her, intermitting their play till the song was finished. Then an incident occurred almost unparalleled in the nursery chronicles of Brentburn. Charley took his thumb out of his mouth, and looking up at her with his pale eyes, said of his own accord, “Adain.”
“Come here then, and sit on my lap,” said Cicely, holding out her hand. There was a momentary struggle between terror and gathering confidence, and then pushing himself up by the big box of bricks Charley approached gradually, keeping a wary eye upon her movements. Once on her lap, however, the little adventurer felt himself comfortable. She was soft and pleasant, and had a bigger shoulder to support him and a longer arm to enfold him than Annie. He leant back against her, feeling the charm of that softness and sweetness, though he did not know how. “Adain,” said Charley; and put his thumb in his mouth with all the feelings of a connoisseur in a state of perfect bodily ease prepared to enjoy the morceau specially given at his desire.
Thus Cicely conquered the babies once for all. Harry, too much astounded by thus seeing his lead taken from him to make any remonstrance, followed his brother in dumb surprise, and stood against her, leaning on her knee. They made the prettiest group; for, as Mab said, even when they are ugly, how pretty children are! and they “compose” so beautifully with a pretty young woman, making even a commonplace mother into a Madonna and Lady of Blessing. Cicely sang them a song, so very low down in the scale at once both of music and of poetry that I dare not shock the refined reader by naming it, especially after that well-worn comparison; and this time both Harry and Charley joined in the encore, the latter too happy to think of withdrawing that cherished thumb from his mouth, murmuring thickly, “Adain.”
“But, oh, what a waste of time – what a waste of time it will be!” cried poor Cicely, when she took refuge in the garden, putting the delicate children to play upon a great rug, stretched on the grass. “To be sure there will be one mouth less to feed, which is always something. You must help me a little while I write my letters, Mab.”
“Who are you going to write to?” said Mab, with colloquial incorrectness which would have shocked out of their senses the Miss Blandys, and all the excellent persons concerned in bringing her up. “Oh yes, I will try to help; but won’t you forgive Annie, just for this little time, and let her stay?”
“I can’t be defied in my own house,” said Cicely, erecting her head with an air which frightened Mab herself; “and I must take to it sooner or later. Wherever we go, it is I that must look after them. Well! it will be a trouble at first; but I shall like it when I get fond of them. Mab, we ought to be fond of them now.”
Mab looked at the children, and then laughed. “I don’t hate them,” she said; “they are such funny little things, as if they had been born about a hundred years before their time. I believe, really, they are not children at all, but old, old men, that know a great deal more than we do. I am sure that Charley could say something very wonderful if he liked. He has a great deal in him, if he would but take his thumb out of his mouth.”
“Charley is my boy,” said Cicely, brightening up; “he is the one I like best.”
“I like him best, too. He is the funniest. Are you going to write there?”
“I must keep my eye upon them,” said Cicely, with great solemnity. She was pleased with her victory, and felt it to be of the most prodigious importance that she should not lose the “influence” she had gained; for she was silly, as became her age, as well as wise. She had brought out her little desk – a very commonplace little article, indeed, of rosewood, with brass bindings – and seated herself under the old mulberry-tree, with the wind ruffling her papers, and catching in the short curling locks about her forehead. (N.B. – Don’t suppose, dear reader, that she had cut them short; those stray curls were carefully smoothed away under the longer braids when she brushed her hair; but the breeze caught them in a way which vexed Cicely as being untidy). It was as pretty a garden scene as you could see; the old mulberry bending down its heavy branches, the babies on the rug at the girl’s feet; but yet, when you look over Cicely’s shoulder, a shadow falls upon the pretty scene. She had two letters to write, and something still less agreeable than her letters – an advertisement for the Guardian. This was very difficult, and brought many a sigh from her young breast.
“‘An elderly clergyman who has filled the office of curate for a very long time in one parish, finding it now necessary to make a change, desires to find a similar – ‘”
“Do you think that will do?” said Mab. “It is as if poor papa were a butler, or something – ‘filled the office of curate for a long time in one parish’ – it does not sound nice.”
“We must not be bound by what sounds nice,” said Cicely. “It is not nice, in fact – is it? How hard it is to put even such a little thing as this as one ought! Will this do better? – ‘A clergyman, who has long occupied the position of curate in charge, in a small parish, wishes to hear of a similar – ‘ What, Mab? I cannot say situation, can I? that is like a butler again. Oh, dear, dear; it is so very much like a butler altogether. Tell me a word.”
“Position,” said Mab.
“But I have just said position. ‘A clergyman who has long held the – an appointment as curate in charge’ – there, that is better – ‘wishes to hear of a similar position in a small parish.’ I think that will do.”
“Isn’t there a Latin word? Locum something or other; would not that be more dignified?” said Mab.
“Locum tenens. I prefer English,” said Cicely; “and now I suppose we must say something about his opinions. Poor dear papa! I am sure I do not know whether he is High, or Low, or Broad.”
“Not Broad,” said Mab, pointedly; for she was very orthodox. “Say sound; I have often seen that, and it does not commit you to anything, – sound, but not extreme, like Miss Blandy’s clergyman.”
“‘Of sound, but not extreme principles,’” wrote Cicely. “That sounds a little strange, for you might say that a man who could not tell a lie, but yet did not mind a fib, was sound, but not extreme. ‘Church principles’ – is that better? But I don’t like that either. Stop, I have it – ‘He is a sound, but not extreme Churchman’ – that is the very thing – ‘and has much experience’ (Ah, poor papa!) ‘in managing a parish. Apply’ – but that is another question. Where ought they to apply? We cannot give, I suppose, the full name and address here?”
“I wonder if any one will apply? But, Cicely, suppose all comes right, as I am sure it will, you may be deceiving some one, making them think – Here is the very person I want; and then how disappointed they will be!”
“Oh, if there is only their disappointment to think of! Mab, you must not think there is any reliance to be put on Mr. Mildmay. He meant it; yes, tears came into his eyes,” cried Cicely, with a look of gratitude and pleasure in her own. “But when he goes back among those Oxford men, those dons, do you think they will pay any attention to him? They will laugh at him; they will say he is a Quixote; they will turn it all into fun, or think it his folly.”
“Why should Oxford dons be so much worse than other men?” said Mab, surprised. “Papa is an Oxford man – he is not hard-hearted. Dons, I suppose, are just like other people?”
“No,” said Cicely, who was arguing against herself, struggling against the tide of fictitious hope, which sometimes threatened to carry her away. “They live by themselves among their books; they have nobody belonging to them; their hearts dry up, and they don’t care for common troubles. Oh, I know it: they are often more heathens than Christians. I have no faith in those sort of people. He will have a struggle with them, and then he will find it to be of no use. I am as sure as if it had happened already,” cried Cicely, her bright eyes sparkling indignant behind her tears.
“At least we need not think them so bad till we know,” said Mab, more charitably.
Cicely had excited herself by this impassioned statement, in which indeed the Oxford men were innocent sufferers enough, seeing that she knew nothing about them. “I must not let myself believe it; I dare not let myself believe it,” she said in her heart; “but, oh! if by chance things did happen so!” What abundant compensation, what lavish apology, did this impetuous young woman feel herself ready to offer to those maligned dons!
The advertisement was at last fairly written out, with the exception of the address to be given. “Papa may surely tell me where they are to apply,” Cicely said, though with doubts in her mind as to whether he was good even for this; and then she wrote her letters, one of which was in Mr. St. John’s name to the lawyer who had written to him about the furniture, asking that the sale might not take place until the curate’s half-year, which ended in the end of September, should be out. Mr. St. John would not do this himself. “Why should I ask any favour of those people who do not know me?” he said; but he had at length consented that Cicely might write “if she liked;” and in any case the lawyer’s letter had to be answered. Cicely made this appeal as business-like as possible. “I wonder how a man would write who did not mind much – to whom this was only a little convenience,” she said to her sister. “I don’t want to go and ask as if one was asking a favour of a friend – as if we cared.”
“But we do care; and it would be a favour – ”
“Never mind. I wish we knew what a man would say that was quite independent and did not care. ‘If it is the same to you, it would be more convenient for me not to have the furniture disturbed till the 22nd of September’ – that is the kind of thing. We girls always make too much of a favour of everything,” said Cicely, writing; and she produced an admirable imitation of a business letter, to which she appended her own signature, “Cecil St. John,” which was also her father’s, with great boldness. The curate’s handwriting was almost more womanlike than hers, for Cicely’s generation are not taught to write Italian hands, and I do not think the lawyer suspected the sex of the production. When she had finished this, she wrote upon another sheet of paper, “My dear Aunt, I am – ” and then she stopped sharply. “It is cool now, let us take them out for a walk on the common,” she said, shutting up her desk. “I can finish this to-night.”
It was not, however, the walk on the common Cicely wanted, but to hide from her sister that the letter to Aunt Jane was much less easy than even those other dolorous pieces of business. Poor Cicely looked upon the life before her with a shudder. To live alone in some new place, where nobody knew her, as nursemaid to these babies, and attendant upon her father, without her sweet companion, the little sister, who, though so near in age, had always been the protected one, the reliant dependent nature, believing in Cicely, and giving her infinite support by that belief! How could she do it? Yet she herself, who felt it most, must insist upon it; must be the one to arrange and settle it all, as so often happens. It would not be half so painful to Mab as to Cicely; yet Mab would be passive in it, and Cicely active; and she could not write under Mab’s smiling eyes betraying the sacrifice it cost her. Mab laughed at her sister’s impetuosity, and concluded that it was exactly like Cicely to tire of her work all in a moment, and dash into something else. And, accordingly, the children’s out-door apparel was got from the nursery, and the girls put on their hats, and strayed out by the garden door upon the common, with its heathery knolls and furze bushes. Harry and Charley had never in all their small lives had such a walk as this. The girls mounted them upon their shoulders, and ran races with them, Charley against Harry, till first one twin, and then the other, was beguiled into shrill little gusts of laughter: after which they were silent – themselves frightened by the unusual sound. But when the races ended, Charley, certainly the hero of the day, opened his mouth and spoke, and said “Adain!” and this time when they laughed the babies were not frightened. Then they were set down and rolled upon the soft grass, and throned in mossy seats among the purple fragrant heather. What an evening it was! The sky all ablaze with the sunset, with clouds of rosy flame hanging like canopies over the faint delicious openings of that celestial green which belongs to a summer evening. The curate, coming from a distant round into the parish, which had occupied him all the day, found them on the grass under the big beech-tree, watching the glow of colour in the west. He had never seen his girls “taking to” his babies before so kindly, and the old man was glad.
“But it is quite late enough to have them out; they have been used to such early hours,” he said.
“And Harry wants his tea,” piped that small hero, with a half whimper.
Then the girls jumped up, and looked at each other, and Cicely grew crimson. Here was a beginning to make, an advantage terrible to think of, to be given to the dethroned Annie, who no doubt was enjoying it keenly. Cicely had already forgotten the children’s tea!
CHAPTER XVI
REALITY
CICELY wrote her letter to her aunt that evening, dropping some tears over it when Mab was not by to see; and almost as soon as it was possible she had a very kind answer, granting her request, and more. Aunt Jane declared that she would receive Mab with great delight, and do everything that could be done to further her art-studies, which, as the British Museum was near, and “a very good artist” lived next door to Miss Maydew, seemed likely to be something worth while. “She shall be to me like my own child; though I have never concealed from either of you that you, Cicely, are my pet,” wrote Miss Maydew; and she added a still more liberal invitation. “If you want to spend a few days anywhere between leaving Brentburn and going to the new place, wherever that may be, you must come here – babies and all. I can manage to find beds for you near; and it will be a nice little holiday for us all,” said the kind woman. She even added a postscript, to the effect that, if there was a little money wanting at the time of the removal, Cicely was “not to hesitate” to apply to her: and what could woman do more? Sympathy and hospitality, and a little money, “is wanted.” Alas! perhaps it is because the money is so sure to be wanted that so few people venture on such an offer; but Miss Maydew knew she was safe with Hester’s child, who was so like her mother. Cicely’s other letter was successful, too. The lawyer who represented the Chester family was quite willing to postpone the sale until Mr. St. John’s time was up. After all, the world is not so very bad as it is called. Nobody was cruel to the St. Johns. The tradespeople agreed to wait for their money. The Chesters would not for the world disturb the departing curate until he was ready to go; and Mrs. Ascott, and all the other great people in the parish, called and made much of the girls. The church was more full than usual every Sunday, for a vague expectation of a farewell (or, as old Mrs. Joel called it, a funeral) sermon was in the people’s minds. A great many of them, now it came to the point, were very sorry that Mr. St. John was going. They would have signed freely anything that had been set before them to make the curate stay. But, nevertheless, they were all interested about his farewell sermon, and what he would say for himself, and what account he would give of various matters which stuck fast in their rustic recollections. Thus the weeks stole away quite placidly, and the harvest was got in, and August wore out under a great blazing moon with the utmost cheerfulness. One or two answers came to the advertisement in the Guardian; but they were not of an encouraging kind. Cicely felt that it was better to repeat it and wait; and her father was always pleased to wait under all circumstances; and the long bright days went away one by one in a kind of noiseless procession, which Cicely felt herself watch with a dreary dismay and restlessness. Nothing had happened yet to avert the calamity that was impending. Everything, on the contrary, seemed preparing for it – leading up to it – though still Mr. St. John went “into the parish,” and still all went on as usual at the rectory. The curate showed no symptom of feeling these last days different from any other; but the girls kept looking forward, and hoping for something, with a hope which gradually fell sick, and grew speechless – and nothing came.
One day when Mrs. Ascott called, Cicely had got into that state of exhaustion and strained anxiety when the mind grows desperate. She had been occupied with the children all day, not able to get free of them – Annie having finally departed, and Betsy, being too much displeased at the loss of her sister and subordinate to make any offer of help. The babies had grown more active and more loquacious under the changed régime, and this, though it was her own doing, increased poor Cicely’s cares. Mab was upstairs preparing for her departure, which was to be a few days before the general breaking up. Altogether when Mrs. Ascott came in, fresh and cool out of her carriage, Cicely was not in the best mood to receive her. She gave the children her work-basket to play with to keep them quiet, and cleared her own brow as best she could, as she stood up and welcomed the great lady. How fresh her toilette was, how unwrinkled her face! a woman altogether at ease, and ready to smile upon everything. She shook hands with Cicely, and took her seat with smiling prettiness. “I have come really on business,” she said; “to see if we could be of any use to you, Cicely – in packing or any of your preparations; and to ask if the time is quite fixed? I suppose your papa must have heard from Mr. Mildmay, and that all is settled now?”
“All – settled?” said Cicely, faintly. The words, so softly and prettily said, went into the girl’s heart like a knife; and yet of course it was no more than she expected – no more.
“The appointment, as you would see, is in the paper to-day. I am so sorry your papa is going, my dear; but as he must go, and we cannot help it, at least we have reason to be thankful that we are getting such a good man as Mr. Mildmay. It will be some little compensation to the parish for losing Mr. St. John.”
“Is it – in the papers?” said Cicely, feeling suddenly hoarse and unable to speak.
“You feel it, my poor dear child! – of course you must feel it – and so do we all. There will not be a dry eye in the whole church when Mr. St. John preaches his farewell sermon. To think that he should have been here so long – though it is a little consolation, Mr. Ascott says, that we are getting a thorough gentleman, and so well connected – an admirable man.”
“Consolation!” cried Cicely, raising her head. “What consolation is wanted? Papa is pretty well worn out; he has done almost as much work as a man can do. People cannot keep old things when they are worn out – the new are better; but why should any one pretend to make a moan over it? I do not see what consolation the parish can want. If you cry at the farewell sermon, Mrs. Ascott, I shall laugh. Why should not your eyes be dry – as dry as the fields – as dry as people’s hearts?”
“Cicely, Cicely!” cried Mrs. Ascott, shocked; “my dear, I am very sorry for it, but a misfortune like this should be borne in a better spirit. I am sure your poor dear papa would say so; and it is nobody’s fault.”
“It is everybody’s fault,” cried Cicely, forgetting herself, getting up in her passion, and walking about the room; “the parish, and the Church, and all the world! Oh, you may smile! It does not touch you; you are well off; you cannot be put out of your home; you cannot have everything taken from you, and see everybody smiling pity upon you, and no one putting out a hand to help. Pity! we don’t want pity,” cried Cicely; “we want justice. How dare you all stand by and see it done? The Church, the Church! that everybody preaches about as if it was God, and yet that lets an old servant be so treated – an old servant that has worked so hard, never sparing himself! If this is the Church’s doing, the Church is harder than the farmers – worse, worse than worldly people. Do you think God will be pleased because he is well connected? or is it God’s fault?” Here her voice broke with a sob and shudder, and suddenly dropping from her height of passion, Cicely said faintly, “Papa!”
“What is it?” said the curate, coming in. “Surely I heard something very strange. Mrs. Ascott, I beg your pardon; my ears must have deceived me. I thought Cicely must be repeating, to amuse herself, some speech, perhaps out of Paradise Lost. I have heard of some great man who was caught doing that, and frightened everybody who heard him,” said Mr. St. John, shaking hands with the visitor with his friendly smile.
He sat down, weary and dusty from “the parish,” and there was a painful pause. Cicely stole away to the corner where her little brothers were playing, her pulse bounding, her heart throbbing, her cheeks aflame, her whole being, soul and body, full of the strong pain and violent stimulus of the shock she had received. She had never expected anything else, she said to herself; she had steadily prepared for the going away, the ruin that awaited them; but, nevertheless, her heart had never believed in it, since that conversation with Mildmay at the rectory gate. Day by day she had awoke with a certainty in her mind, never put into words, that the good news would come, that all would be well. But the shock did not crush her, as it does some people; it woke her up into freshened force and life; her heart seemed to thrill and throb, not so much with pain as with activity, and energy and power.
“Cicely is very much excited,” said Mrs. Ascott in a low tone. “I fear she is very excitable; and she ought to be more careful in her position – a clergyman’s daughter – what she says. I think you ought to speak to her, Mr. St. John. She flew at me (not that I mind that) and said such things – because I mentioned that Mr. Mildmay’s appointment was in the paper this morning; and that since we must lose you – which nobody can be more sorry for than we are – it was well at least that we were getting so good a man.”
“Ah!” said the curate. The announcement took him by surprise, and gave him a shock too, though of a different kind. He caught his breath after it, and panted for a moment. “Is it in the papers? I have not seen it. I have no time in the morning; and, besides, I never see the Times.”
“We hope you will settle to dine with us one day before you go,” said Mrs. Ascott. “How we shall miss you, Mr. St. John! I don’t like to think of it – and if we can be of any use in your preparations – I hear there is to be a sale, too?”
“Not till we move. They will not put us to any inconvenience; indeed,” said the curate, with a sigh and a smile, “everybody is very kind.”
“I am sure everybody wishes to be kind,” said Mrs. Ascott, with emphasis. “I must not take up your time any longer, for you look very tired after your rounds. But Mr. St. John, mark my words, you must hold a tight hand over Cicely. She uses expressions which a clergyman’s daughter ought not to use.”
“What were you saying to her, my dear?” said Mr. St. John, coming in again after he had taken the lady to her carriage; “your voice was raised, and you still look excited. What did you say?”
“It was nothing, papa. I lost my temper – who could help it? I will never do it again. To think of that man calmly accepting the living and turning you out of it, after all he said.”
“What good would it have done had he refused?” said Mr. St. John. “My dear, how could he help it?”
“Help it?” cried Cicely. “Can nobody help anything in this world? Must we stand by and see all manner of wrong done and take the advantage, and then think we are innocent and cannot help it. That is what I scorn. Let him do wrong if he will, and bear the blame – that is honest at least. But to say he cannot help it; how could he ever dare to give such a miserable excuse?”
“My dear,” said the curate, “I am too tired to argue. I don’t blame Mildmay; he has done just what was natural, and I am glad he is coming here; while in the meantime talking will do no good, but I think my tea would do me good,” he added with a smile.
Always tea, Cicely could not help thinking as she went away dutifully to prepare it – or dinner, or some trifle; never any serious thought of what was coming, of what had already come. She was young and impatient and unjust, as it is so natural to be at her years. The curate put his hand over his eyes when he was left alone. He was not disappointed or surprised. He had known exactly all along how it would be; but when it thus came upon him with such obvious and unmistakable reality, he felt it sharply. Twenty years! All that part of his life in which anything to speak of had happened to him, and – what was almost as hard to bear – all the familiar things which had framed in his life – the scene, the place, the people, the surroundings he was used to. He had not even his favourite consolation, forlorn pride in never having asked anything, to sustain him, for that was no longer the case. He was asking something – a poor curacy, a priest’s place for a piece of bread. The pang was momentary, but it was sharp. He got up, and stretched his long languid figure, and said to himself, “Ah, well! what is the good of thinking? It is soon enough to make oneself wretched when the moment comes,” and then he went peacefully into the dining-room to tea. This was not how the younger people took it, but then perhaps they had more capacity for feeling left.
Next morning Cicely got a letter of a very unusual description, which affected her in no small degree. It was from Mildmay, and, perhaps, it will be best to give it in full here: —
“Dear Miss St. John,
“I have delayed writing to you until I could make sure that you must have seen or heard of the announcement in the papers which will tell the results of my last three weeks’ work. Do not think that our last conversation has been obliterated from my mind. Very far from that. I have seen the Master and all who are concerned, and have done my best to show them the step which bare justice required at their hands, but ineffectually. I made a point at the same time of ascertaining what were the views of the gentleman to whom Brentburn would be offered in case I refused it, and found him quite decided on the subject. What could I do then? Should I have declined and put myself entirely out of the way of being of any use at all?
“As a matter of simple justice, I refer the question to you. What am I to do now? My thoughts on the subject have been many, I need not say, since I saw you. May I ask your father to continue at Brentburn as my curate? I am quite inexperienced; his assistance would be of infinite advantage to me; and, in point of fact, as is natural at our respective ages, I should be his curate, not he mine. May I do this? or what else can I do? The position in which I find myself is a painful one. It would have been much easier, I assure you, to have shuffled the whole matter off upon Ruffhead, and to have withdrawn. But I felt a responsibility upon me since I met you; and I ask you now urgently, feeling that I have almost a right to your advice, what am I to do?
“Yours very truly, “Roger Mildmay.”
This letter excited Cicely greatly. By chance it arrived before the others had come into the breakfast-room, and she was able to read it without any looker-on. She put it hurriedly into her pocket before her father and sister appeared. She did not know what answer to make, neither did she feel comfortable about making any answer, and she said nothing about it all day; though – oh, how the letter burned her pocket and her mind! She had scarcely ever known what it was to have a secret before, and not to tell Mab seemed almost wrong. She felt that there was something clandestine about her, going up and down the house with that letter in her possession which nobody knew of. And to answer it – to answer it without any one knowing? This she could not do. She bore the burden of her secret all the day, and surprised Mab very much by her silence about Mr. Mildmay, whom the younger sister abused roundly. “Perhaps it was not his fault,” Cicely faltered. What had come over her? What change had happened? Mab was lost in a maze.
The difficulty, however, was solved in a very unexpected way. Next morning – no later – Mr. St. John himself had a letter from Oxford; a letter which made him change colour, and bend his meek brows, and then smile – but not like himself. “Cicely, this must be your doing,” he said. “I never made any complaints to Mr. Mildmay, nor said anything to call for his pity. He asks me to be his curate,” the old man added, after a pause, with a strange smile. No one had suspected that Mr. St. John was proud, until it became apparent all at once how proud he was.
