Part 21 (1/2)
”Mr. Ascott,” said Cicely, turning full towards him, her eyes very clear, her nostrils dilating a little--for emotion can dry the eyes as well as dim them, even of a girl--”you know what papa had almost as well as he did himself. He could not coin money; and how do you think he could have saved it off what he had? There is enough to pay every penny he ever owed, which is all I care for.”
”And you have nothing--absolutely nothing?”
”We have our heads and our hands,” said Cicely; the emergency even gave her strength to smile. She faced the two prosperous men before her, neither of whom had ever known what it was to want anything or everything that money could buy, her small head erect, her eyes s.h.i.+ning, a smile upon her lip--not for worlds would she have permitted them to see that her heart failed her at sight of the struggle upon which she was about to enter;--”and fortunately we have the use of them,” she said, involuntarily raising the two small hands, looking all the smaller and whiter for the blackness that surrounded them, which lay on her lap.
”Miss St. John,” said Mildmay, starting up, ”I dare not call myself an old friend. I have no right to be present when you have to answer such questions. If I may come another time----”
To look at his sympathetic face took away Cicely's courage. ”Don't make me cry, please; don't be sorry for me!” she cried, under her breath, holding out her hands to him in a kind of mute appeal. Then recovering herself, ”I would rather you stayed, Mr. Mildmay. I am not ashamed of it, and I want to ask something from you, now that you are both here. I do not know who has the appointment; but you must be powerful. Mr.
Ascott, I hear that Mrs. Jones, the schoolmistress, is dead--too.”
”Yes, poor thing! very suddenly--even more suddenly than your poor father. And so much younger, and an excellent creature. It has been a sad week for Brentburn. She was buried yesterday,” said Mr. Ascott, shaking his head.
”And there must be some one to replace her directly, for the holidays are over. I am not very accomplished,” said Cicely, a flush coming over her face; ”but for the rudiments and the solid part, which is all that is wanted in a parish school, I am good enough. It is difficult asking for one's self, or talking of one's self, but if I could get the place----”
”Cicely St. John!” cried Mr. Ascott, almost roughly in his amazement; ”you are going out of your senses--the appointment to the parish school?”
”I know what you think,” said Cicely, looking up with a smile; but she was nervous with anxiety, and clasped and unclasped her hands, feeling that her fate hung upon what they might decide. ”You think, like Aunt Jane, that it is coming down in the world, that it is not a place for a lady. Very well, I don't mind; don't call me a lady, call me a young woman--a person even, if you like. What does it matter? and what difference does it make after all?” she cried. ”No girl who works for her living is anything but looked down upon. I should be free of all that, for the poor people know me, and they would be kind to me, and the rich people would take no notice. And I should have a place of my own, a home to put the children in. The Miss Blandys, I am sure, would recommend me, Mr. Mildmay, and they know what I can do.”
”This is mere madness!” cried Mr. Ascott, paling a little in his ruddy complexion. Mildmay made a rush at the window as she spoke, feeling the situation intolerable. When she appealed to him thus by name, he turned round suddenly, his heart so swelling within him that he scarcely knew what he was doing. It was not for him to object or to remonstrate as the other could do. He went up to her, scarcely seeing her, and grasped for a moment her nervous interlaced hands. ”Miss St. John,” he cried, in a broken voice, ”whatever you want that I can get you, you shall have--that, if it must be so, or anything else,” and so rushed out of the room and out of the house, pa.s.sing Mab in the hall without seeing her. His excitement was so great that he rushed straight on, into the heart of the pine-woods a mile off, before he came to himself. Well!
this, then, was the life he had been wondering over from his safe retirement. He found it not in anything great or visible to the eye of the world, not in anything he could put himself into, or share the advantages of. He, well off, rich indeed, strong, with a man's power of work, and so many kinds of highly-paid, highly-esteemed work open to him, must stand aside and look on, and see this slight girl, nineteen years old, with not a t.i.ttle of his education or his strength, and not two-thirds of his years, put herself into harness, and take up the lowly work which would sink her in social estimation, and, with all superficial persons, take away from her her rank as gentlewoman. The situation, so far as Cicely St. John was concerned, was not remarkable one way or another, except in so much as she had chosen to be village schoolmistress instead of governess in a private family. But to Mildmay it was as a revelation. He could do nothing except get her the place, as he had promised to do. He could not say, Take part of my income; I have more than I know what to do with, though that was true enough. He could do nothing for her, absolutely nothing. She must bear her burden as she could upon her young shrinking shoulders; nay, not shrinking--when he remembered Cicely's look, he felt something come into his throat. People had stood at the stake so, he supposed, head erect, eyes smiling, a beautiful disdain of the world they thus defied and confronted in their s.h.i.+ning countenances. But again he stopped himself; Cicely was not defiant, not contemptuous, took upon her no _role_ of martyr. If she smiled, it was at the folly of those who supposed she would break down, or give in, or fail of courage for her work; but nothing more. She was, on the contrary, nervous about his consent and Ascott's to give her the work she wanted, and hesitated about her own powers and the recommendation of the Miss Blandys; and no one--not he, at least, though he had more than he wanted--could do anything! If Cicely had been a lad of nineteen, instead of a girl, something might have been possible, but nothing was possible now.
The reader will perceive that the arbitrary and fict.i.tious way of cutting this knot, that _tour de force_ which is always to be thought of in every young woman's story, the very melodramatic begging of the question, still, and perennially possible, nay probable, in human affairs, had not occurred to Mildmay. He had felt furious indeed at the discussion of Cicely's chances or non-chances of marriage between the Ascotts; but, so far as he was himself concerned, he had not thought of this easy way. For why? he was not in love with Cicely. His sympathy was with her in every possible way, he entered into her grief with an almost tenderness of pity, and her courage stirred him with that thrill of fellow-feeling which those have who could do the same; though he felt that nothing he could do could ever be the same as what she, at her age, so boldly undertook. Mildmay felt that she could, if she pleased, command him to anything, that, out of mere admiration for her bravery, her strength, her weakness, and youngness and dauntless spirit, he could have refused her nothing, could have dared even the impossible to help her in any of her schemes. But he was not in love with Cicely; or, at least, he had no notion of anything of the kind.
It was well, however, that he did not think of it; the sudden ”good marriage,” which is the one remaining way in which a G.o.d out of the machinery can change wrong into right at any moment in the modern world, and make all suns.h.i.+ne that was darkness, comes dreadfully in the way of heroic story; and how such a possibility, not pushed back into obscure regions of hazard, but visibly happening before their eyes every day, should not demoralize young women altogether, it is difficult to say.
That Cicely's brave undertaking ought to come to some great result in itself, that she ought to be able to make her way n.o.bly, as her purpose was, working with her hands for the children that were not hers, bringing them up to be men, having that success in her work which is the most pleasant of all recompenses, and vindicating her sacrifice and self-devotion in the sight of all who had scoffed and doubted--this, no doubt, would be the highest and best, the most heroical and epical development of story. To change all her circ.u.mstances at a stroke, making her n.o.ble intention unnecessary, and resolving this tremendous work of hers into a gentle domestic necessity, with the ”hey presto!” of the commonplace magician, by means of a marriage, is simply a contemptible expedient. But, alas! it is one which there can be no doubt is much preferred by most people to the more legitimate conclusion; and, what is more, he would be justified by knowing the accidental way is perhaps, on the whole, the most likely one, since marriages occur every day which are perfectly improbable and out of character, mere _tours de force_, despicable as expedients, showing the poorest invention, a disgrace to any romancist or dramatist, if they were not absolute matters of fact and true. Pardon the parenthesis, gentle reader.
But Mr. Mildmay was not in love with Cicely, and it never occurred to him that it might be possible to settle matters in this ordinary and expeditious way.
Mr. Ascott remained behind when Mildmay went away, and with the complacence of a dull man apologised for his young friend's abrupt departure. ”He is so shocked about all this, you must excuse his abruptness. It is not that he is without feeling--quite the reverse, I a.s.sure you, Cicely. He has felt it all--your poor father's death, and all that has happened. You should have heard him in church on Sunday. He feels for you all very much.”
Cicely, still trembling from the sudden touch on her hands, the agitated sound of Mildmay's voice, the sense of sympathy and comprehension which his looks conveyed, took this apology very quietly. She was even conscious of the humour in it. And this digression being over, ”her old friend” returned seriously to the question. He repeated, but with much less force, all that Miss Maydew had said. He warned her that she would lose ”caste,” that, however much her friends might wish to be kind to her, and to treat her exactly as her father's daughter ought to be treated, that she would find all that sort of thing very difficult. ”As a governess, of course you would always be known as a lady, and when you met with old friends it would be a mutual pleasure; but the village schoolmistress!” said Mr. Ascott; ”I really don't like to mention it to Adelaide, I don't know what she would say.”
”She would understand me when she took all into consideration,” said Cicely, ”I could be then at home, independent, with the little boys.”
”Ah, independent, Cicely!” he cried; ”now you show the cloven hoof--that is the charm. Independent! What woman can ever be independent? That is your pride; it is just what I expected. An independent woman, Cicely, is an anomaly; men detest the very name of it; and you, who are young, and on your promotion--”
”I must be content with women then,” said Cicely, colouring high with something of her old impetuosity; ”they will understand me. But, Mr.
Ascott, at least, even if you disapprove of me, don't go against me, for I cannot bring up the children in any other way.”
”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 embarra.s.sment 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.”