“There is nothing to forgive,” he said; “but you will tell me more? Indeed I am not angry—how could I be angry?—but most anxious to know.”
“Cicely,” said the curate’s gentle voice from the window, “it is time for prayers, and we are all waiting for you. Come in, my dear.” Mr. St. John stood looking out with a large prayer-book in his hand. His tall figure, with a slight wavering of constitutional feebleness and age in it, filled up one side of the window, and at his feet stood the two babies, side by side as usual, their hats taken off, and little white pinafores put on over their black frocks, looking out with round blue eyes. There was no agitation about that placid group. The little boys were almost too passive to wonder, and it had not occurred to Mr. St. John as possible that anything calculated to ruffle the countenance or the mind could have been talked of between his daughter and his guest. He went in when he had called them, and took his seat at his usual table. Betsy and Annie stood by the great sideboard waiting for the family devotions, which Betsy, at least, having much to do, was somewhat impatient of; and Mab was making the tea, in order that it might be “drawn” by the time that prayers were over. The aspect of everything was so absolutely peaceful, that when Mr. Mildmay stepped into the room he could not but look at Cicely with a question in his eyes. She, her face flushed and her mouth quivering, avoided his eye, and stole away to her place at the breakfast-table behind. Mildmay, I am afraid, got little benefit by Mr. St. John’s prayer. He could not even hear it for thinking. Was this true? and if it was true, what must he do? A perfect tempest raged in the new rector’s bosom, while the old curate read so calmly, unmoved by anything but the mild every-day devotion which was habitual to him. Secular things did not interfere with sacred in the old man’s gentle soul, though they might well have done so, Heaven knows, had human necessities anything to do with human character. And when they rose from their knees, and took their places round the breakfast-table, Mildmay’s sensations became more uncomfortable still. The girl who had denounced him as about to drive her from her home, made tea for him, and asked him if he took cream and sugar. The old man whom he was about to supplant placed a chair for him, and bade him take his place with genial kindness. Mr. Mildmay had been in the habit for the greater part of his life of thinking rather well of himself; and it is inconceivable how unpleasant it is when a man accustomed to this view of the subject, feels himself suddenly as small and pitiful as he did now. Mr. St. John had some letters, which he read slowly as he ate his egg, and Mabel also had one, which occupied her. Only Cicely and the stranger, the two who were not at ease with each other, were free to talk, and I don’t know what either of them could have found to say.
The curate looked up from his letter with a faint sigh, and pushed away the second egg which he had taken upon his plate unconsciously. “Cicely,” he said, “this is a startling letter, though perhaps I might have been prepared for something of the kind. Mr. Chester’s relations, my dear, write to say that they wish to sell off the furniture.” Mr. St. John gave a glance round, and for a moment his heart failed him. “It is sudden; but it is best, I suppose, that we should be prepared.”
“It was to be expected,” said Cicely, with a little gasp. She grew paler, but exerted all her power to keep all signs of emotion out of her face.
“Sell the furniture?” said Mab, with a laugh. “Poor old things! But who will they find to buy them?” Mab did not think at all of the inevitable departure which must take place before Mr. Chester’s mahogany could be carried away.
“You will think it very weak,” said poor Mr. St. John, “but I have been here so long that even the dispersion of the furniture will be something in the shape of a trial. It has seen so much. Of course, such a grievance is merely sentimental—but it affects one more than many greater things.”
“I did not know that you had been here so long,” said Mildmay.
“A long time—twenty years. That is a great slice out of one’s life,” said Mr. St. John. (He here thought better of a too hasty determination, and took back his egg.) “Almost all that has happened to me has happened here. Here I brought your mother home, my dears. Cicely is very like what her mother was; and here you were born, and here——”
“Oh, papa, don’t go on like that odious Jessica and her lover, ‘On such a night!’” said Cicely, with a forced laugh.
“I did not mean to go on, my dear,” said the curate, half aggrieved, half submissive; and he finished his egg with a sigh.