Cicely

by Mrs. Molesworth

The fine weather did come quickly, and what was of more consequence, lasted when it came. But Mrs. Methvyn was not able to enjoy it. She never went out again. In some inexplicable way, just as the summer flowers were beginning to spring, and the grass to look bright in the sunshine again, she caught cold, and soon to all eyes but those of the daughter who would not see, it was evident that the last stage of her journey had been entered upon. Under the pressure of the new acute symptoms, those of her chronic malady disappeared or were cast into the shade; so for long Cicely hoped, and defended her hope with some show of plausibility. But at last her mother entered into a region of suffering so painful to witness, so apparently agonising to endure, that the unselfishness of true devotion forbade the child to hope, or to wish to hope for anything but her release.

“I must not ask to keep her,” murmured Cicely in her anguish. “I only pray that she may be spared any more suffering.”

And at the end, the very end, there fell upon the dying woman a great calm—a few hours of perfect peace, and to Cicely there was given strength to ease her mother’s heart of its one great burden.

“Mother dear, I can bear it,” she whispered, “I think it is better for you to go. It cannot be for very long that we shall be separated. I think I shall feel happier when I know that you cannot suffer any more. Amiel will come home to me soon, and then I shall not be alone. Mother dear, don’t be afraid for me.”

And with a smile of gratitude to her child for the unselfish words, a smile of relief, and hope, and love beyond expression, Cicely’s mother died.

Then came the real agony of sorrow. She was gone. There was nothing more to do for her; no motive to be strong and cheerful any more. There was her empty room; there stood the sofa on which so lately, so incredibly short time ago, she had lain and smiled at Cicely as she moved about the room, and answered her when she spoke to her; there was the book she had been reading, the desk at which she had been writing, the clothes she had worn—everything in its accustomed place, all the inanimate objects associated with her, among which she had lived, there, present, tangible—and she? Gone, dead; her sweet face blotted out of existence; her loving, gentle voice hushed for ever. “For even if it be all true,” cried Cicely in her agony, “even if it be true that I shall meet her again, will she ever be the very same mother? I cannot believe it. If God loved and pitied us, He would not torture us so. Life is no gift to be grateful for, since it is made up of such anguish. Better far, never to have been born.”

And for a time, through a crisis of intense suffering, the girl’s spirit sank within her, her very heart failed her. Faith and hope alike deserted her, “the cloud was thick and the storm great,” and it seemed to her that the very foundations of her being were shaken to their centre.

But after the strong wind and the earth quake and the fire, there comes to those who will hear it the sound of the still, small voice—the voice of eternal love and compassion, of patient tenderness and all wise consolation—and Cicely, exhausted by suffering, listened and was comforted. She remembered the smile on her mother’s dying face, and her faith revived. She bowed her head, and the rebellion died out of her heart. “Bitter as it is, if it is God’s will it must be best,” she said at last, unmurmuringly. Then she looked her life in the face, and realised that it was yet hers to use, if possible even, yet to enjoy. How to employ it, how to save herself from drifting out into lonely aimlessness and indifference, she could not yet see. But she began to trust that sooner or later, there would come a gleam of light.

What was she to do, where was she to go? Before long these questions pressed upon her, and she knew not how to answer them. She was to all intents and purposes alone in the world, for excepting her sister Amiel, she had no near relations.

“If I were a man like you,” she said one day to Mr. Hayle, when he had called to see her, a few weeks after her mother’s death, “I could be at no loss. I could find, if not happiness, at least peace, in spending my life for others as you are going to do. And what little money I have might do some good. But being a woman, it is quite different. I am hedged in on every side, unless I joined one of those sisterhoods you tell me of. I cannot devote myself to charitable work of that kind. I should do more harm than good trying to do anything of the kind by myself. And I could not join any of those sisterhoods.”