Part 10 (1/2)
”It leads to the churchyard,” he said. ”I like a country churchyard. May we go there before we go in? What a pity the church is so new! and this part of Berks.h.i.+re is rich in old churches, I understand?”
”It is in good repair, and much more wholesome than the old ones,” said Mr. St. John. ”They may be more picturesque. Here you can see into the rectory garden, the ground slopes so much; the church is very much higher than the common. It used to be sweet to me, looking back at the lights in the girls' rooms, when I stood----there they are on the lawn now, Mr. Mildmay. They have not gone out, after all.”
Mildmay, looking down from the churchyard path, felt that it was dishonourable to spy upon the two girls unaware of his scrutiny, whom he could just see within the wall of the rectory garden; but he could not help feeling that this was more and more like a drama which was being played before him. He followed Mr. St. John along the narrow path to the little white stile which admitted to the churchyard. The curate ceased his tranquil talk as they entered that inclosure. He turned mechanically as it seemed, to the left hand, and went round to a white cross upon a grave turned towards the common. It was of common stone, grey with years. The curate took off his hat again, and stood by it quite simply and calmly.
”It used to be sweet to me, standing here, to see the lights in the girls' rooms,” he said once more. The soft tranquillity of his tone suited the still twilight, the pensive silent plain. It was too still for sorrow, nor was there any touch of unhappiness in the gentle voice.
Young Mildmay uncovered too, and stood wondering, reverent, with a swell of sympathy in his heart. Some men would have felt with anguish the unspeakable separation between the mother under the dews and the twinkle of the lights in her children's windows; but Mr. St. John was not of that mind. Yet, somehow, to have this stranger here made his loss seem fresher to him. ”Cicely is very like her mother,” he said, and touched the cross softly with his hand as if caressing it, and turned away. Mr. Mildmay could see that there were two paths up the mound to the white gate, and the meaning of them struck him vividly--one was that by which they had just come from the common, the other led down straight to the rectory. His heart was more touched than I can say, by the gentle fidelity, consoled and calm, yet always tender, which had worn that double line through the gra.s.s.
Mr. St. John, however, made a hesitating pause at a corner before he took this second way home. ”My other poor wife, poor Mrs. St. John, lies there; but that I can show you to-morrow,” he said, in his gentle unchanged voice, and quietly went on to the gate, leading the way.
”Supper will be ready,” the curate continued, when they emerged again upon the turf. ”We live a very simple primitive life here; our meals are not arranged quite as yours are, but it comes to the same thing. In short, whatever seeming differences there are, all ways of living come to much the same thing.”
Did they so? Mr. St. John's meaning was of the simplest. He meant that whether you called your latest meal dinner or supper did not matter much; but his companion gave it a broader sense. With a jar of laughter in his mind that broke up the reverential respect of the previous moment, he followed his simple host into the house, which by-and-by was to be his own house. Poor Mrs. St. John, who was not the mother of the girls; whose grave could be shown to-morrow; for whose sake these paths had not been worn across the gra.s.s; the stranger gave her her little meed of human notice in that smothered laugh. Poor Miss Brown!
The supper was homely enough--cold meat and salad, and bread and cheese and jam--and would have been cheerful and pleasant, Mr. Mildmay thought, but for the absorbed looks of that elder daughter, who was still somewhat unfriendly to him. He went upstairs to his room, where a large mahogany four-post bed, with heavy moreen hangings, awaited him, before the night was very far advanced. When he had been there for a short time, he saw that his door was not shut, and went to close it. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Cicely going downstairs. She had retired some time before he did, so that her reappearance struck him all the more; and she was quite unconscious that he saw her. She carried a candle in one hand, and a pile of tradesmen's books in the other. She was pale, her look fixed, her nostrils a little dilated, like some one going to a painful task, he thought. As she moved down the dark staircase, a speck of light, with her candle s.h.i.+ning on the whiteness of her face and dress, the walls, by which she flitted, looked more and more like the scenery of a drama to the young man. If they only would have opened, as in the _real_ theatre, and shown him where she was going, what she was about to do! But this was very mean curiosity on Mr. Mildmay's part. He shut his door humbly, that she might not be disturbed by the sound, and after a while went meekly to bed, trying to say to himself that he had no right to pry into the business of these good people, who had been so kind to him; though, indeed, she had not been kind to him, he reflected, by way of lessening his own sense of guilt. He heard subdued voices below for some time after, and wished more than ever that the scenery would open, and reveal this scene to him; but the substantial walls stood fast, and the moreen curtains hung grimly about him, shutting out everything. There was no compromise about the furniture at the rectory; the pillared bedposts stood square, and stern, and strong, till poor Mildmay, dozing within them in the warm August night, thought them Samson's pillars in the house of Dagon, or the pillars of the earth.
Cicely went down to her father very resolute with her books. She had intended to say very little to him, but he had exasperated her, and she felt that she could not let him off. But her courage sank a little when she got into the study, and saw his white head in the light of the solitary candle. There were two candles on the table, but faithful to an old frugal habit, Mr. St. John had put out one of them when his guest left him. The room was good-sized, and full of huge mahogany bookcases; and as the table was at one end of it, there is no telling how full of gloom it was. One of the windows was open, and a great solid piece of darkness seemed to have taken its place, and to be pouring in. Mr. St.
John was looking over some old sermons, bending his head over the papers, with spectacles upon his nose, which he took off when Cicely came in. He did not usually sit up so long, and he was rather aggrieved at the late interview she had asked for. He did not like to be disturbed out of his usual way, and he felt that she was going to speak to him about Wilkins, the most painful subject which could be suggested.
Cicely, too, when he raised his head, and took off his spectacles, found the interview a great deal more difficult than in her excited feelings she had supposed.
”Well, my dear,” he said gently; ”you wanted to speak to me.” He gave a little s.h.i.+ver when he saw the books in her hand.
”Yes, papa,” she said, laying them down on the table; and then there was a pause. The soft night air came in, and crept wistfully about the room, moving the curtains. When it approaches midnight, even in August, there is always something chill and mournful in the night wind.
”I wanted to speak to you,” said Cicely, catching her breath a little; ”it was about the books. I don't know if you have looked at them lately.
Oh, papa! do you know that we are--in debt? I don't know how to say it--a great deal in debt!”
”Not a great deal, my dear,” he said faintly; ”something, I know.
Wilkins spoke to me to-day--almost before Mr. Mildmay.”
”It is not Wilkins alone,” said Cicely solemnly; ”it is everybody. The butcher, too; and, oh! so many little people. How are they ever to be paid? When I looked over the books to-day, not knowing--Oh! do you know how it has happened? Can they be cheating? It is my only hope.”
”My dear,” said the curate, faltering, ”better that one should have done wrong than that a great many should have done wrong. Poor Mrs. St.
John--nay, I should say both of us, Cicely; for I was also to blame. We were not like your mother, my dear; it all came natural to your mother; but she, or rather we----” Mr. St. John's voice sank into an indistinct confusion. He was too good to blame the poor woman who was dead, and he did not know how to meet the eyes thus s.h.i.+ning upon him, youthful, inexorable, of Hester's child. But even Cicely was moved by her father's wistful looks, and the humility of his tone.
”If only one could see any way of paying them,” she said; ”if even we had been staying here! I had a plan, and we might have done it. And it brings it all so near, and makes it so certain, to see this man.”
”My love,” said the curate remonstrating, ”we knew that some one must come. It is not his fault. Why should we be unkind to him?”
”Unkind! Oh papa!” cried Cicely in her exasperation, ”what had we to do with him? It was not our business to feast him and pet him. But that is nothing,” she said, trembling with excitement; ”I will not blame you, papa, for that or anything, if only you will say now what you are going to do, or where you think we can go, or what I must say to these poor people. We cannot stay here and starve, or till they put us in prison--only tell me what we must do.”
”How can I tell you, Cicely,” said the curate, ”when I do not know myself? I must advertise or something,” he said helplessly. ”I am old, my dear. Few people want a curate of my age; I suppose it almost looks like a stigma on a man to be a curate at my age.”
”Papa!” Cicely stopped short in what she was going to say, and looked at him with strained and anxious eyes. She had meant to a.s.sail him for still being a curate, but his self-condemnation closed the girl's lips, or rather roused her in defence.
”Yes,” said Mr. St. John, ”you may say I ought to have thought of that sooner; but when things go on for a long time one asks one's self why should not they go on for ever? 'He said, There will be peace in my time.' That was selfish of Hezekiah, my dear, very selfish, when you come to think of it. But I dare say it never seemed so to him, and neither did it to me.”
Cicely was utterly overpowered by this; her anger and impatience died out of her, and compunction and remorse rose in her heart. ”That is not the right way to look at it,” she said. ”It is a shame that a man like you should only be a curate--oh, a shame to the Church and every one!