Part 12 (1/2)
”Papa,” said Cicely, in a low voice full of agitation, ”the best thing of all would be to settle now, while Mr. Mildmay is here; to find out when he wishes to come; and then there need be no more to put up with than is absolutely necessary. It is better to know exactly when we must go.”
The curate turned his mild eyes to the young man's face. There was a look of pain and reluctance in them, but of submission; and then he smiled to save the stranger's feelings. ”It is hard upon Mr. Mildmay,”
he said, ”to be asked this, as if we were putting a pistol to his head; but you will understand that we wish you every good, though we may be grieved to leave our old home.”
Mildmay had been making a pretence at eating, feeling as if every morsel choked him. Now he looked up flushed and nervous. ”I am afraid I have inadvertently said more than I meant,” he said. ”I don't think I have made up my mind beyond the possibility of change. It is not settled, as you think.”
”Dear me,” said Mr. St. John, concerned, ”I am very sorry; I hope it is not anything you have heard here that has turned you against Brentburn?
It is not a model parish, but it is no worse than other places. Cicely has been telling you about my troubles with those cottages; but, indeed, there is no parish in England where you will not have troubles of some kind--unwholesome cottages or other things.”
”I said nothing about the cottages,” said Cicely, with downcast looks.
”I hope Mr. Mildmay does not mind anything I said. I say many things without thinking. It is very foolish, but it would be more foolish to pay any attention. I am sure you have often said so, papa.”
”I?” said the curate, looking at her disturbed countenance with some surprise. ”No, I do not think you are one of the foolish talkers, my dear. It is a long story about these cottages; and, perhaps, I let myself be more worried than I ought. I will tell you all about it on the way to the Heath, for I think you ought to call on the Ascotts, if you will permit me to advise. They are the chief people about here. If you are ready, perhaps we should start soon; and you will come back and have some of our early dinner before you go?”
”I am ashamed to give so much trouble, to--receive so much kindness,”
said Mildmay, confused. He rose when Mr. St. John did, but he kept his eyes fixed upon Cicely, who kept her seat, and would not look at him.
The curate had various things to do before he was ready to start. He had his scattered memoranda to collect, and to get his note-book from his study, and yesterday's newspaper to carry to an old man in the village, and a book for a sick child, and I don't know how many trifles besides.
”Papa's things are always all over the house,” Mab cried, running from one room to another in search of them. Cicely generally knew exactly where to find all these properties which Mr. St. John searched for habitually with unfounded yet unalterable confidence in the large pockets of his long clerical coat. But Cicely still kept her seat, and left her duties to her sister, her mind being full of other things.
”What is the matter with Cicely?” said Mab, running back with her hands full. ”I have found them, but I don't know which of your pockets they belong to. This is the one for the note-book, and this is the one for the newspaper; but what does Cicely mean, sitting there like a log, and leaving everything to me?”
”Miss St. John,” said Mildmay, in this interval, ”may I come back as your father says? May we finish the conversation we began this morning?
or is the very sight of me disagreeable to you? There are so many things I want to know.”
Cicely got up suddenly, half impatient, half sad. ”We are always glad to see any one whom papa asks,” she said; ”you must call it luncheon, Mr.
Mildmay, but to us it is dinner; that makes the difference between rector and curate,” she added, with a laugh.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PARSON'S ROUND.
How brilliant was that August morning when the two men went out! the sky so blue and warm and full of suns.h.i.+ne, bending with friendly tenderness toward the luxuriant earth which it embraced, lost everywhere in soft distances, limits that were of the eye and not of the infinite melting s.p.a.ce--showing through the foliage, opening out sweet and full over the breezy purpled common. The red cottage roofs, with all their lichens, shone and basked in the light; the apples reddened moment by moment, the yellow corn rustled and waved in every breath of air, conscious of the coming sickle. Everything was at its fullest blaze of colour; the trees more deeply green than usual, the sky of more profound and dazzling blue, the heather purple-royal, showing in its moorland flush against the russet-golden fields burning in the sun which gave them their last perfection of ripeness; and even the flowers in the gardens blazing their brightest to hide the fact from all men that the sweetness and hope of the year were almost lost in that harvest and climax which touches upon decay, as everything does which is perfect. The sun was too fierce for anything but red burning geraniums, and gaudy hollyhocks and rank dahlias. But the red old cottages at Brentburn were of themselves like growths of nature, with all their stains of moss, red and grey and yellow, relieved and thrown up by the waving greyness of the willows, that marked every spot of special dampness, and by the wealthy green woods that rolled away into the distance, into the sky. Everything is musical in such a morning; the very cackle of the ducks in that brown pond--how cool it looks to the dusty wayfarer!--takes a tone from the golden air; the slow roll of the leisurely cart along the country road; the voices from the cottages calling in full Berks.h.i.+re drawl to Jyain or Jeo outside. A harmonious world it seemed, with nothing in it to jar or wound; the very air caressing every mother's son it met, blowing about the rags as if it loved them, conveying never a chill to the most poorly clad. How different was that broad outdoor satisfaction and fulness to the complainings and troubles enclosed by every set of four walls in the paris.h.!.+ Mildmay, as was natural, knew nothing about these nor suspected them; his spirits rose when he came out into the summer air--to walk along the cool side of the road in the shade, and watch the triumphant suns.h.i.+ne blazing over everything, leaving not an inch even of the common high road unglorified, brought a swell of pleasure to his heart he could not tell why.
”You must not come to a country parish with the idea that it is Arcadia,” said Mr. St. John; ”such ideas lead to a great deal of disappointment; but you must not let yourself be discouraged either. I don't think that Cicely knows all the outs and ins of the story about the cottages.”
”Miss St. John said nothing about the cottages.”
”Ah! I thought she had put you out of spirits; that would be foolish,”
said the curate kindly. ”You see, Mr. Mildmay, everybody here thinks a great deal of a little money; it is so, I believe, in every small place; they have little, very little, Heaven knows; and somehow, when one is very poor, that gets to look of more importance than anything else. I don't say so from personal experience, though I have always been poor enough. My way, I am afraid, is to think too little of the money, not too much--which is, perhaps, as great a mistake the other way; but it is much easier, you know, to condemn those faults we have no mind to,” Mr.
St. John added with a smile. The visit of an intelligent stranger had quite brightened the good man up, though it ought to have depressed him, according to all principles of good sense. The curate forgot how much he himself must suffer from the change that was coming. Mildmay pleased him; he was deferential to his own grey hairs and long experience; he was willing to hear and apparently to take, his predecessor's opinion, and Mr. St. John liked the novelty, the new companion, the attentive listener. He walked on quite briskly, with the easy steps of a man to whom the way is so familiar that he does not need to pause to look where he is going. Now and then he would stop to point out a view, a glimpse of the distant forest, a slope opening down upon the lower level of the common, or even a pretty cottage; and one of them, a most picturesque refuge of misery, with tiny little cas.e.m.e.nt windows bulging anyhow from the ruddy old wall, and a high roof of the most indescribable and beautiful mixture of tints, set him easily afloat again upon the subject of which his mind was full.
”Look at it!” he said; ”it is a picture. If one could only clear them out and shut them up--or rather throw them open, that the winds of heaven might enter, but not our fellow-creatures, Mr. Mildmay! As I was saying, they are all poor here. The people think you do them an injury when you speak of anything that has to be paid for. Because I have tried to get the cottages put into good repair, the arrangements made a little more decent, and the places fit to live in, more than two or three of the people have left the parish church. Yes, that is quite true--I thought Cicely must have told you--well-to-do people, who might have spared a few pounds well enough. It was a trial; but what of that? I have outlived it, and perhaps done a little good.”
”The cottagers, at least, must have been grateful to you,” said Mildmay; but the curate shook his head.