“You could put them out to nurse.”
“Where?” cried Cicely; “and who would take care of them for the money I could give? They are too young for school; and I have no money for that either. If there is any other way, I cannot see it; do not go against me at least.”
This he promised after a while, very doubtfully, and by and by went home, to talk it over with his wife, who was as indignant as he could have wished. “What an embarrassment it will be!” she cried. “Henry, I tell you beforehand, I will not ask her here. I cannot in justice to ourselves ask her here if she is the schoolmistress. She thinks, of course, we will make no difference, but treat her always like Mr. St. John’s daughter. It is quite out of the question. I must let her know at once that Cicely St. John is one thing and the parish schoolmistress another. Think of the troubles that might rise out of it. A pretty thing it would be if some young man in our house was to form an attachment to the schoolmistress! Fancy! She can do it if she likes; but, Henry, I warn you, I shall not ask her here.”
“That’s exactly what I say,” said Mr. Ascott. “I can’t think even how she could like to stay on here among people who have known her in a different position; unless—” he concluded with a low whistle of derision and surprise.
“Please don’t be vulgar, Henry—unless what?”
“Unless—she’s after Mildmay; and I should not wonder—he’s as soft as wax and as yielding. If a girl like Cicely chooses to tell him to marry her, he’d do it. That’s what she’s after, as sure as fate.”
CHAPTER XX.
THE PARISH SCHOOLMISTRESS.
I WILL not follow all the intermediate steps, and tell how the curate’s family left their home, and went to London; or how Miss Maydew made the most conscientious effort to accustom herself to the little boys, and to contemplate the possibility of taking the oversight of them. They were not noisy, it is true; but that very fact alarmed Aunt Jane, who declared that, had they been “natural children,” always tumbling about, and making the walls ring, she could have understood them. Perhaps had they been noisy, she would have felt at once the superiority of “quiet children.” As it was, the two little tiny, puny old men appalled the old lady, who watched them with fascinated eyes, and a visionary terror, which grew stronger every day. Sometimes she would jump up in a passion and flee to her own room to take breath, when the thought of having them to take care of came suddenly upon her. And thus it came about that her opposition to Cicely’s scheme gradually softened. It was a bitter pill to her. To think of a Miss St. John, Hester’s child, dropping into the low degree of a parish schoolmistress, went to her very heart; but what was to be done? How could she oppose a thing Cicely had set her heart upon? Cicely was not one to make up a scheme without some reason in it; and you might as well (Miss Maydew said to herself) try to move St. Paul’s, when the girl had once made up her mind. I do not think Cicely was so obstinate as this, but it was a comfort to Miss Maydew to think so. And after everybody had got over their surprise at the idea, Miss St. John was duly installed as the schoolmistress at Brentburn. The few little bits of furniture which had belonged to them in the rectory—the children’s little beds, the old faded carpets, etc.—helped to furnish the schoolmistress’s little house. Cicely took back the little Annie whom she had sent away from the rectory for interfering with her own authority, but whose devotion to the children was invaluable now, and no later than October settled down to this curious new life. It was a very strange life. The schoolmistress’s house was a new little square house of four rooms, with no beauty to recommend it, but with little garden plots in front of it, and a large space behind where the children could play. The little kitchen, the little parlour, the two little bedrooms were all as homely as could be. Cicely had the old school-room piano, upon which her mother had taught her the notes, and which Miss Brown had shed tears over on that unfortunate day when Mr. St. John proposed to marry her rather than let her go back to the Governesses’ Institute—and she had a few books. These were all that represented to her the more beautiful side of life: but, at nineteen, fortunately life itself is still beautiful enough to make up for many deprivations, and she had a great deal to do. As for her work, she said, it was quite as pleasant to teach the parish children as to teach the little ladies at Miss Blandy’s; and the “parents” did not look down upon her, which was something gained.
And it was some time before Cicely awoke to the evident fact that, if the parents did not look down upon her, her old acquaintances were much embarrassed to know how to behave to her. Mrs. Ascott had gone to see her at once on her arrival, and had been very kind, and had hoped they would see a great deal of her. On two or three occasions after she sent an invitation to tea in the evening, adding always, “We shall be quite alone.” “Why should they be always quite alone?” the girl said to herself; and then she tried to think it was out of consideration for her mourning. But it soon became visible enough what Mrs. Ascott meant, and what all the other people meant. Even as the curate’s daughter Cicely had but been a girl whom they were kind to; now she was the parish schoolmistress—“a very superior young person, quite above her position,” but belonging even by courtesy to the higher side no more. She was not made to feel this brutally. It was all quite gently, quite prettily done; but by the time spring came, brightening the face of the country, Cicely was fully aware of the change in her position, and had accepted it as best she could. She was still, eight months after her father’s death—so faithful is friendship in some cases—asked to tea, when they were quite alone at the Heath; but otherwise, by that time, most people had ceased to take any notice of her. She dropped out of sight except at church, where she was only to be seen in her plain black dress in her corner among the children; and though the ladies and gentlemen shook hands with her still, when she came in their way, no one went out of his or her way to speak to the schoolmistress. It would be vain to say that there was no mortification involved in this change. Cicely felt it in every fibre of her sensitive frame, by moments; but fortunately her temperament was elastic, and she possessed all the delicate strength which is supposed to distinguish “blood.” She was strong, and light as a daisy, jumping up under the very foot that crushed her. This kind of nature makes its possessor survive and surmount many things that are death to the less elastic; it saves from destruction, but it does not save from pain.
As for Mr. Mildmay, it was soon made very apparent to him that, for him at his age to show much favour or friendship to the schoolmistress at hers, was entirely out of the question. He had to visit the school, of course, in the way of his duty, but to visit Cicely was impossible. People even remarked upon the curious frequency with which he passed the school. Wherever he was going in the parish (they said), his road seemed to turn that way, which, of course, was highly absurd, as every reasonable person must see. There was a side window by which the curious passer-by could see the interior of the school as he passed, and it was true that the new rector was interested in that peep. There were the homely children in their forms, at their desks, or working in the afternoon at their homely needlework: among them, somewhere, sometimes conning little lessons with portentous gravity, the two little boys in their black frocks, and the young school-mistress seated at her table; sometimes (the spy thought) with a flush of weariness upon her face. The little house was quite empty during the school-hours; for Annie was a scholar too, and aspiring to be pupil-teacher some day, and now as reverent of Miss St. John as she had once been critical. Mildmay went on his way after that peep with a great many thoughts in his heart. It became a kind of necessity to him to pass that way, to see her at her work. Did she like it, he wondered? How different it was from his own! how different the position—the estimation of the two in the world’s eye! He who could go and come as he liked, who honoured the parish by condescending to become its clergyman, and to whom a great many little negligences would have been forgiven, had he liked, in consequence of his scholarship, and his reputation, and his connections. “We can’t expect a man like Mildmay, fresh from a University life, to go pottering about among the sick like poor old St. John,” Mr. Ascott would say. “That is all very well, but a clergyman here and there who takes a high position for the Church in society is more important still.” And most people agreed with him; and Roger Mildmay went about his parish with his head in the clouds, still wondering where life was—that life which would string the nerves and swell the veins, and put into man the soul of a hero. He passed the school-room window as often as he could, in order to see it afar off—that life which seemed to him the greatest of all things; but he had not yet found it himself. He did all he could, as well as he knew how, to be a worthy parish priest. He was very kind to everybody; he went to see the sick, and tried to say what he could to them to soothe and console them. What could he say? When he saw a man of his own age growing into a gaunt great skeleton with consumption, with a wistful wife looking on, and poor little helpless children, what could the young rector say? His heart would swell with a great pang of pity, and he would read the prayers with a faltering voice, and, going away wretched, would lavish wine and soup, and everything he could think of, upon the invalid; but what could he say to him, he whose very health and wealth and strength and well-being seemed an insult to the dying? The dying did not think so, but Mildmay did, whose very soul was wrung by such sights. Then, for lighter matters, the churchwardens and the parish business sickened him with their fussy foolishness about trifles; and the careful doling out of shillings from the parish charities would have made him furious, had he not known that his anger was more foolish still. For his own part, he lavished his money about, giving it to everybody who told him a pitiful story, in a reckless way, which, if persevered in, would ruin the parish. And when any one went to him for advice, he had to bite his lip in order not to say the words which were on the very tip of his tongue longing to be said, and which were, “Go to Cicely St. John at the school and ask. It is she who is living, not me. I am a ghost like all the rest of you.” This was the leading sentiment in the young man’s mind.