THE SENTENCE.
T would be hard to find a pleasanter family group than that which had gathered round the tea-table at Wilbourne Rectory one hot bright evening in the end of July: a kindly-looking mother, with a dark, sweet, brunette face, that would not be careworn spite of forty years of life, seven children, and a slender purse; a tall, slight, brown-bearded father, a little bald, and with deep lines of thought on the broad forehead and around the rather sunken blue eyes; a fair, round-faced girl of fifteen, sitting next him; two smaller lasses, with long black hair almost straight, clear brown complexions, and a bit of bright scarlet bloom on each cheek, that was just like the mother's, only fresher and less fixed; a little curly-haired lad of eight, that was like nobody in particular; and last, but not least, a Sandhurst cadet, a well-grown youth of seventeen, with dark hair, cut very short in military style, and a little dark down on cheek and lip, which he called whiskers and moustaches. He sat on one side of his mother, and on the other sat a person who was not a member of the family—Mr. Cunningham's curate, a great big broad-shouldered young man, six feet three at least in height, with a pleasant, open face, rather sun-burnt, and the most good-tempered smile that you can possibly conceive.
Two of the children of the house were absent—the second son, a midshipman in the Queen's service, who was now on his way to Japan; and the third, who was expected home this very evening from school.
A little talk sprang up about him among his brothers and sisters, begun by a 'wonder' from one of the little girls as to when he would arrive; and strange to say, at the mention of his name, the lines on the father's brow deepened a little, and Mrs. Cunningham's face took for a moment quite a sorrowful expression.
'I almost hope he will not come till tea is over,' she said.
It did not sound like a motherly sentiment, but it was spoken out of the depths of a true motherly feeling.
Cecil Cunningham was coming home in a kind of disgrace. He had been placed at a good grammar school in the county town, some fourteen miles from Wilbourne, had won for himself an 'exhibition,' as it was called, by which the greater part of his school expenses were defrayed, and would have been allowed to keep it till he went to college had his progress during the first year been sufficiently good. But, alas! it had just been discovered that the marks he had gained for his various studies throughout this time did not, when counted up, amount to the rather high total which the founder's will required; and so it had been announced to him and his parents that he had forfeited the 'exhibition,' and could not be received at the school again unless his father were prepared to pay the full terms, which, though not very high, happened to be more than Mr. Cunningham could justly afford. The middy had lately been fitted out for sea. The son at Sandhurst was a considerable expense; and though it was hoped that after another six months he would succeed in getting a commission without purchase, there would be his outfit and yearly allowance to provide; and altogether, Mr. Cunningham did not see his way to giving Cecil such advantages as he could wish, without the help of that 'exhibition' which the boy had just lost by his own fault.
Cecil was very clever, and, though rather idle by nature, had promised to work hard at school, and had been supposed to be conscientious enough to be sure to keep his word. He greatly wished to be a clergyman; and this desire of his had been an intense joy to his father, who, though a good deal disappointed at his two elder sons choosing army and navy, had consoled himself with the thought that one at least of his children had a real desire for the priesthood, and this the very one whose talents best fitted him for a university education. From school he was to have gone to Oxford; and his whole prospects had seemed fair enough till now, so that it was not wonderful that the unexpected news of his failure had occasioned great disappointment at the Rectory. His father was much displeased with him, and meant that he should feel how great a fault his idleness had been; and his mother, who knew this, and believed that her boy was already feeling it, was anxious that the first meeting should be got over without the presence of spectators.
But just as she spoke, Cecil, followed by the gardener wheeling his luggage in a barrow, was seen coming up the gravel walk towards the house.
The little curly-haired boy rushed off at once to meet him,—not to open the hall door, for that stood wide open already,—but a restraining look from the mother stopped the girls, who were rising also; and when Cecil came in, the greetings were very quiet, though not in the least cold, except perhaps on Mr. Cunningham's part. Cecil had his mother's face, at once dark and bright, with brown clear eyes that looked full of intelligence, and, alas! seemed to say that their owner might have kept his place in the school with ease had he but so chosen. He did not seem very conscious or very miserable: he had the true boyish instinct of hiding feelings, and looked much as usual, though there was nothing like bravado or nonchalance in his manner. When his father shook hands with him gravely, and merely said, 'Well, Cecil,' in a short dry way, a sudden flush mounted up in his brown cheek; and there was a little anxiety in his face when he turned to kiss his mother, as if a sudden fear had come over him that she might refuse the caress. But she did not; and he sat down calmly enough to his bread and butter, showing a very tolerable schoolboy appetite, and munching away rather quickly when he found that the others were near the end of their meal. His sisters and his little brother volunteered some information about his rabbits, and so on; but when they began to ask questions concerning his schoolfellows, their father said quietly, 'Let Cecil have his tea,' and began a conversation about politics with the curate, in which none of the juniors ventured to join except the cadet.
When they rose from the table, the two gentlemen went off to the study; and with a sigh of relief one of the little girls exclaimed, 'Oh, now you can come and see the rabbits, Cecil; father won't want you!'
Cecil glanced at his mother; but though she was longing for a good hug and a little private talk, she thought it better to refrain just then, and said gently, 'Yes, you can go with Jessie, but don't go out of earshot;' after which she turned away and went up-stairs.
Jessie, who was just a year younger than Cecil, was his special friend and ally, and the other long-haired lassie considerately left them together, and went off to do some gardening; while little Lewis followed at a respectful distance, not able to tear himself quite away from Cecil, and yet not presuming to interrupt the confidential talk between him and his sister.
The rabbit hutch was in a little yard not far from the house, and within view, as it happened, of the study window. Cecil stroked the soft creatures' ears, and fondled them a little, and fed them with some cabbage leaves with which Jessie supplied him; but his manner was rather absent, and presently he said abruptly, 'I say, Jessie, isn't it an awful shame?'
Jessie was not prepared for this view of the question.
'I am so sorry,' she said doubtfully. 'I never once thought of its happening till Dr. Lomax's letter came; for you know, Cecil, you told me you meant to work. Oh! don't you remember saying it here, in this very place, when you were making the new bars to Lop-ear's hutch?'
'Well, and I did,' said Cecil gruffly.
'Yes, I know you did; and that made me think you would do it.'
'Well, so I did do it—that's what I mean' said he more gruffly still.
'Did work!' exclaimed she gladly, and quite ready of belief, with the tender trustfulness of a true sister. 'But oh, then, Cecil how was it that they didn't give you marks enough? I thought you would have lots to spare—I did indeed!'
'Humbug!' said Cecil, but not gruffly now; 'it's not so easy to get marks as all that. I was quite sure of having enough, though—so sure that I hadn't a second thought about it; and I can't tell to this moment how it was I didn't, except that Lomax is such a brute!'
'The Doctor!'
'No—his son, the junior master; it was he who counted up the marks.'
'Do you mean the marks you got at the examination?'
'No, the weekly marks I had got in all my studies during the half-year; that's the way they calculate to see whether one may keep the "exhibition."'
'Do you think he can have made any mistake?'
'He might, perhaps, to spite me; it's not likely otherwise, for he's a dab at arithmetic. I asked the Doctor to let me see the book, but he wouldn't; and of course I couldn't tell him what I thought, and it would have been no use if I had.'
'And you did really work all the time?' said Jessie, looking at him tenderly and seriously out of her big black eyes.
'Well, almost all—not quite the last week or two, perhaps: it was awfully hot weather, and being so sure, I thought I might take it easy; but that couldn't have made the difference.'
'I wish you had been able to say you worked quite all the time,' said Jessie gravely, with a little sigh, 'for then father couldn't have been angry.'
'I'm afraid he's awfully vexed, isn't he?' said Cecil, with rather an anxious glance towards the study.
'I think so; and Percy says' (Percy was the cadet) 'that he doesn't know how to manage about your education. Francie and I have been so anxious about it: it would be too dreadful if you were not to be a clergyman, wouldn't it, Cecil?'
Cecil said nothing, but absently doled out the last cabbage leaf to the rabbits in such small morsels, that they nibbled at his fingers as if they thought those part of the provender. Jessie was lost in a calculation of whether if Frances and she were to have no new frocks for a twelvemonth, and to save up all their pocket-money, that would make it possible for Cecil to go back to the grammar school, when Mr. Cunningham leaned out of the study window and called him.
Though he had been expecting the summons, he started and coloured violently, but ran off at once, going in by the back door, which was the nearest way.
Jessie went into a little tool-shed, which was close to the rabbits' dwelling-place. She did not like to watch the window, but was too anxious to be able to go and help Francie with her gardening, or to play with Lewis, who was wandering aimlessly about. 'Father,' who was so tender to his little girls, who was the very very best man, as Jessie believed, in the whole world, could nevertheless be very severe when he saw occasion—could reprove in a way which an offender was not likely to forget. He had wonderful patience for the blunders of little Lewis, who was rather dull, and found lessons a daily difficulty; but he had always expected much more of Cecil, who was really full of ability, and had sometimes dealt seriously with his fits of idleness in the days of his home teaching. And now—now when the boy had failed just when every principle of duty should have made him exert himself to the utmost—what could be looked for? Oh, what a bitter half-hour this must be to Cecil!
Yes, for half an hour passed, and still Cecil did not come back. Jessie's fright and agitation were growing very hard to bear. 'Oh I know it is right!' she said, clasping her hands together; 'I know we must be scolded and punished for our faults; only I wish it was me, and not Cecil. And, after all, I think there must have been some mistake, for he says he did work; and if father could only believe it, I am sure he wouldn't be angry, even though Cecil has lost his place in school! Oh, I wish it could be made clear somehow! I know! I will ask God to make it clear.' And then the little girl prayed to the heavenly Father, whom the earthly father had taught her to seek in all her troubles.
Eight o'clock struck, and she started to her feet.
'Oh! I must go in and do my work—I shall only just be able to finish it before bed-time. Father must have gone to the choir practice. I wonder if he has taken Cecil with him, and if that is the reason why he hasn't come back?'
With a deep-drawn breath of relief at this possibility, she ran into the house, and meeting her eldest brother in the hall, hastily inquired if he knew what had become of Cecil.
'He's in his room, I think,' was the answer. 'Poor little beggar! I fancied I heard him sobbing, and wanted to go in, but he wouldn't let me. I've just been telling Mary, that if I don't succeed in getting my commission without purchase I shall enlist as a private, and never come home at all. I couldn't stand seeing you all look as glum about me as you do about Cecil.'
'Oh, but, Percy, would that be—' began little Jessie in consternation; and then he laughed, and she saw that he was joking.
'Mother's been looking for you,' he said as she turned towards the staircase; 'she wants you to do some work.'
'Where's father?'
'Gone to the choir practice a quarter of an hour ago. Good-bye; I'm going out for a stroll. Try and cheer up that poor little chap; perhaps he'll let you in, as you're his chum.'
Jessie longed to try that moment, but she knew she was due at her needle-work, and very unwillingly went into the drawing-room, where her mother and sisters were sitting round a lamp-lit table, stitching away very busily at a new set of shirts for Percy.
'I was looking for you, Jessie,' said the mother in her pleasant voice; 'come and work at double speed, to make up for lost time.'
Jessie had never felt less disposed to work; but when Mrs. Cunningham made room for her, and gave her the seam she was to do, with a kindly sympathy in tone and glance that seemed to say she knew just what the little girl was feeling, though she wasn't going to talk about it, all her unwillingness melted away. 'Mother is sad too,' she thought. 'I won't do anything to vex her;' and so she worked away as neatly and diligently as she could till nine o'clock, which was her bed-time.
'I may go to Cecil before I go to bed, mother, mayn't I?' she whispered as she was bidding good-night.
Mrs. Cunningham gave permission, and Jessie rushed up-stairs two steps at a time, but controlled herself to give a very gentle tap at Cecil's door. It must have been too gentle, for he took no notice of it; but in answer to another, rather louder, came the question, 'Is it you, Jessie?' And when he found it was, he opened the door, which was locked, and let her in.
He seemed to have been unpacking, for his little portmanteau was open on the floor, and some of his clothes and other possessions were strewn upon the bed and the one chair, which was the only seat that the little attic could boast; but he was flushed, and his eyes were red, as if he had been crying, and he turned away abruptly from his sister when he had let her in, and began to dive into the portmanteau again.
'Can't I help you?' said she, not knowing well how to begin her task of comfort. 'I'll fold up the clothes and put them in the drawers, while you take out the books. Oh! perhaps you meant to leave them in, though. You won't want them for the holidays?'
'Pretty holidays!' said Cecil passionately, more to himself than to her. 'A single week!'
'I don't understand,' she rejoined in consternation. 'You're not going back to school in a week, surely?'
'I'm not going back to Eastwood at all, but I'm going to a horrid, odious, beastly little day school in Fairview;' and Cecil flung out some books upon the floor, in a manner which did not bespeak very exemplary submission to his father's decrees.
'JESSIE CAME OVER TO HIM AND HUGGED HIM.'
See page 92.
The information itself, and Cecil's terrible adjectives, both dismayed Jessie, and for a minute or two she did not speak. Then she said, 'But surely there must be holidays at the day school too?'
'They're just over—they began in June. Of course those sort of places don't break up at the same time as the public schools, like we do,' said Cecil with wrathful contempt.
'And must you begin when the school does?'
'I've got to—that's all; it's to be my punishment, father says,—just as if losing the exhibition were not punishment enough!' And he buried his face in the portmanteau to hide his tears.
Jessie came over to him and hugged him; and he didn't seem to mind, though she could only kiss the side of his cheek and his shirt collar, for the greater part of his face was hidden among the books.
'Did you tell him you worked nearly all the time?' she faltered in an unsteady voice.
'I began to say something, and he asked me if I could honestly say I had done my very best, and I couldn't quite say that, you know, and then he wouldn't hear any more. And oh, I'm sure he thinks I did nothing but idle my time away!'
'Did you tell him you thought there must be some mistake?'
'I said something about Lomax spiting me, but he wouldn't listen to that.'
'Oh no,' said Jessie, who readily understood that her father would never admit that explanation of the affair. 'Oh, Cecil, I am so sorry, so very sorry!'
'If I had really been idle,' said Cecil, raising up his tear-wet face, more crimson than ever from its sojourn in the box, 'then I shouldn't care—I mean, it would only be fair that I should be served out for it; but when I haven't—when I have tried all this year—oh!—--' and he was nearly choked by the sobs which, in his desire to be manly, he was struggling to repress.
Jessie believed him entirely, and was grieved to the very heart. 'I am so sorry,' she repeated. 'But, dear Cecil, God knows; He sees you have been trying; He isn't angry with you.'
'Then why does He let this happen?' said Cecil fiercely.
Jessie was startled and shocked, and had no answer ready. 'I don't know,' she said at last, through her tears; 'I can't tell why, but He is so good—oh, He is so good!—perhaps it will all come right still. I will ask Him; and you will, won't you, Cecil? Isn't there something in the Bible about its being acceptable with God, if we do well and suffer for it?'
'Yes; but I'm not suffering because I've done well, but because I'm supposed to have done ill,' said Cecil gloomily. 'There's no good talking, Jessie; you'd better go to bed.'
'Perhaps I had,' said Jessie, a sudden thought striking her as she heard her father's voice in the passage below; 'but I can't bear to leave you, Cecil. I am so sorry, and I do love you so!'
He half returned her tender, sorrowful hug; and then she ran away, but not straight to her own room. She darted down one flight of stairs, and caught hold of her father, who had come in from the practice, and had been washing his hands before going to supper.
'Father,' she said breathlessly, 'please let me say it: Cecil has been working—he has indeed. Oh, I am sure you would believe it if you had heard what he said to me just now!'
Mr. Cunningham did not draw himself away from the detaining clasp, but he said gravely, 'I quite believe that Cecil does not think he has been so very idle, but he admits that he has not done his best, and I hope in a little while he will see all his fault, and be sorry for it. Don't let him talk to you any more to-night.'
'But don't you think there may have been some mistake?'
'No, indeed,' he answered in a surprised tone, which showed that no such supposition had ever entered his head.
Then, as she still lingered, he stooped to kiss her, and said kindly, 'Don't try to comfort Cecil with such an idea as that, my child, but see if you can encourage him to do his best for the future.'
'And—father,' she said timidly, 'is he really only to have a week's holiday?'
'Yes,' said Mr. Cunningham in his most decided tone; then more gently he added, 'I am afraid that is punishing you as well as him, but it can't be helped; and as he is only going to a day school, you will not lose him entirely.'
Remembering the adjectives Cecil had heaped upon the day school, Jessie could not feel this to be quite consolatory; but she only said 'Good-night, father,' and held up her face for another kiss, which was given very tenderly.
Poor little girl! there was a great deal of grief and perplexity in her heart that night; but the comfort was, that though she so pitied Cecil, she did not distrust the goodness of either the heavenly or the earthly father. She could not see the why and wherefore of it all; but when she had said her prayers, she laid herself down to sleep trustfully and patiently, while Cecil was tossing and tumbling about, feeling as if everybody except Jessie were against him.
