The Curate in Charge Part 19

said Cicely.

"Yes, early--early," he said, still smiling. "Directly, Hester--before you have reached the gate----"

"Papa! don't you know me?" cried Cicely, trembling from head to foot.

Again he turned to her with his old face all lighted up and shining.

"Know you! my darling!" he said.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CURATE LEAVES BRENTBURN.

Cicely went to her room that night in a very nervous and disturbed condition. It was her last night, too, in the house in which she had been born; but she had no leisure to think of that, or to indulge in any natural sentiments on the subject. She was very much alarmed about her father, whose looks were so strange, but did not know what to do. That he should take her for her mother was perhaps not wonderful at such a moment of agitation; but it frightened her more than words can say. What could she do? It was night, and there was no one in the house with her but Betsy, who had for hours been buried in deepest slumbers; and even had she been able to send for the doctor, what advance would that have made?--for he was not ill, only strange, and it was so natural that he should be strange;--and the good steady-going country doctor, acquainted with honest practical fevers and rheumatism, what help could he bring to a mind diseased? Cicely had changed her room in her new office of nurse, and now occupied a small inner chamber communicating with that of the two children. She was sitting there pondering and thinking when she heard her father come upstairs. Then he appeared suddenly bending over the children's little cots. He had a candle in his hand, and stooping feebly, kissed the little boys. He was talking to himself all the time; but she could not make out what he said, except, as he stood looking at the children, "Poor things, poor things! G.o.d bless you." Cicely did not show herself, anxiously as she watched, and he went out again and on to his own room. He was going to bed quietly, and after all it might turn out to be nothing; perhaps he had been dozing when he called her Hester, and was scarcely awake. After this she intended to go to bed herself; for she was sadly worn out with her long day's work and many cares, and fell dead asleep, as youth unaccustomed to watching ever will do in the face of all trouble. The house was perfectly still so long as she was awake; not a sound disturbed the quiet except the breathing of Harry and Charley, and the tap of the jessamine branches against her windows.

There was one last blossom at the end of a branch, late and long after its neighbours, which shed some of its peculiar sweetness through the open window. The relief was so great to hear her father come upstairs, and to know that he was safe in his room, that her previous fright seemed folly. She said her prayers, poor child! in her loneliness, giving tearful thanks for this blessing, and fell asleep without time to think of any bothers or sorrow of her own. Thus sometimes, perhaps, those who have other people to carry on their shoulders avoid occasionally the sharp sting of personal feeling--at least, of all the sentiments which are of a secondary kind.

The morning was less warm and bright than usual, with a true autumnal haze over the trees. This soothed Cicely when she looked out. She was very early, for there were still various last things to do. She had finished her own individual concerns, and locked her box ready for removal, before it was time to call the children, who slept later and more quietly than usual by another happy dispensation of providence.

Cicely heard the auctioneer arrive, and the sound of chatter and laughter with which Betsy received the men, with whom already she had made acquaintance. Why not? Shall everybody be sad because we are in trouble? Cicely asked herself; and she leant out of the window which overlooked the garden, and took a deep draught of the dewy freshness of the morning before she proceeded to wake the children and begin the day's work. Her eyes, poor child! were as dewy as the morning; but she did not give herself time to cry, or waste her strength by such an indulgence. A knock at her door disturbed her, and she shut the window hastily, and shaking off those stray drops from her eyelashes, went to see what Betsy wanted so early. Betsy stood outside, looking pale and excited. "The men says, please, miss, will you come downstairs?" said Betsy, making an effort at a curtsy, which was so very unusual that Cicely was half amused.

"What do they want? I have to dress the children, Betsy. Could not you do instead?"

"If you please, miss, I'll dress the children. Do go--go, please Miss Cicely! I'm too frightened. O miss, your poor papa!"

"Papa?" Cicely gave the girl one frightened beseeching look, and then flew downstairs, her feet scarcely touching the steps. Why was he up so early? Why was he vexing himself with those men, and their preparations, making himself miserable about nothing, when there were so many real troubles to bear? The men were standing in a little knot by the study door, which was half open. "What do you want with me? What is it?"

They were confused; one of them put forward another to speak to her, and there was a little rustling, and shuffling, and changing of position, which permitted her to see, as she thought, Mr. St. John sitting, facing the door, in his usual chair. "Ah! it is papa who has come down, I see--thank you for not wishing to disturb him. I will tell him," said Cicely, pa.s.sing through the midst of them with swift light youthful steps.

"Don't let her go! Stop her, for G.o.d's sake!" cried one of the men, in subdued confused tones. She heard them, for she remembered them afterwards; but at that moment the words conveyed no meaning to her. She went in as any child would go up to any father. The chair was pushed away from the writing-table, facing towards the door, as if he had been expecting some one. What surprised Cicely more than the aspect of his countenance, in which at the first glance she saw no particular difference, was that he had upon his knees, folded neatly, a woman's cloak and hat--her mother's cloak and hat--which had remained in his room by his particular desire ever since Hester died.

"Papa, what are you doing with these?" she said.

There was no reply. "Papa, are you asleep?" cried Cicely. She was getting very much frightened, her heart beating against her breast. For the moment some impulse of terror drove her back upon the men at the door. "He has gone to sleep," she said, hurriedly; "he was tired, very much tired last night."

"We have sent for the doctor, miss," said one of the men.

"Papa, papa!" said Cicely. She had gone back to him paying no attention to them; and then she gave a low cry, and threw herself on her knees by his side, gazing up into his face, trembling. "What is the matter?" said the girl, speaking low; "what is it, papa? Where were you going with that hat and cloak? Speak to me; don't sit there and doze. We are to go away--to go away--don't you remember, to-day?"

Some one else came in just then, though she did not hear. It was the doctor, who came and took her by the arm to raise her. "Run away, my dear; run upstairs till I see what is to be done," he said. "Somebody take her away."

Cicely rose up quickly. "I cannot awake him," she said. "Doctor, I am so glad you have come, though he would not let me send yesterday. I think he must be in a faint."

"Go away, go away, my dear."

It neither occurred to the poor girl to obey him nor to think what he meant. She stood by breathless while he looked at the motionless figure in the chair, and took into his own the grey cold hand which hung helpless by Mr. St. John's side. Cicely did not look at her father, but at the doctor, to know what it was; and round the door the group of men gazed too awestricken, with Betsy, whom curiosity and the attraction of terror had brought downstairs, and one or two labourers from the village pa.s.sing to their morning's work, who had come in, drawn by the strange fascination of _what had happened_, and staring too.

"Hours ago," said the doctor to himself, shaking his head; "he is quite cold; who saw him last?"

"O doctor, do something!" cried Cicely, clasping her hands; "don't lose time; don't let him be like this; do something--oh, do something, doctor! Don't you know that we are going to-day?"

He turned round upon her very gently, and the group at the door moved with a rustling movement of sympathy. Betsy fell a crying loudly, and some of the men put their hands to their eyes. The doctor took Cicely by the arm, and turned her away with gentle force.

"My dear, you must come with me. I want to speak to you in the next room."

"But papa?" she cried.

"My poor child," said the compa.s.sionate doctor, "we can do nothing for him now."

Cicely stood quite still for a moment, then the hot blood flushed into her face, followed by sudden paleness. She drew herself out of the kind doctor's hold, and went back and knelt down again by her father's side.

Do nothing more for him--while still he sat there, just as he always did, in his own chair?

"Papa, what is it?" she said, trembling, while they all stood round.

Suddenly the roughest of all the men, one of the labourers, broke forth into loud sobs.

"Don't you, miss--don't, for the love of G.o.d!" cried the man.

She could not hear it. All this came fresh to her word for word a little later, but just then she heard nothing. She took the hand the doctor had taken, and put her warm cheek and her young lips to it.

"He is cold because he has been sleeping in his chair," she cried, appealing to them. "Nothing else--what could it be else? and we are going away to-day!"

The doctor grasped at her arm, almost hurting her. "Come," he said, "Cicely, this is not like you. We must carry him to bed. Come with me to another room. I want to ask you how he was last night."

This argument subdued her, and she went meekly out of the room, trying to think that her father was to be carried to his bed, and that all might still be well. Trying to think so; though a chill had fallen upon her, and she knew, in spite of herself.

The men shut the door reverently as the doctor took her away, leaving him there whom no one dared to touch, while they stood outside talking in whispers. Mr. St. John, still and cold, kept possession of the place.

He had gone last night, when Cicely saw him, to fetch those relics of his Hester, which he had kept for so many years in his room; but, in his feeble state, had been so long searching before he could find them, that sleep had overtaken Cicely, and she had not heard him stumbling downstairs again with his candle. Heaven knows what fancy it was that had sent him to seek his wife's cloak and hat; his mind had got confused altogether with trouble and weakness, and the shock of uprootal; and then he had sat down again with a smile, with her familiar garments ready for her, to wait through the night till Hester came. What hour or moment it was no one could tell; but Hester, or some other angel, had come for him according to his expectation, and left nothing but the case and husk of him sitting, as he had sat waiting for her, with her cloak upon his knees.

"I am going to telegraph for her sister," said the doctor, coming out with red eyes after all was done that could be done, both for the living and the dead. "Of course you will send and stop the people from coming; there can be no sale to-day."

"Of course," said the auctioneer. "The young lady wouldn't believe it, my man tells me. I must get them off at once, or they'll get drinking.

They're all upset like a parcel of women--what with finding him, and what with seeing the young lady. Poor thing! and, so far as I can learn, very badly left?"

"Left!" cried the doctor; there was derision in the very word. "They are not _left_ at all; they have not a penny in the world. Poor St. John, we must not say a word now against him, and there is not much to say. He got on with everybody. He did his duty by rich and poor. There was never a better clergyman, always ready when you called him, early or late; more ready for nothing," the doctor added remorsefully, "than I am for my best paying patients. We might have done more to smooth his way for him, perhaps, but he never could take care of money or do anything to help himself; and now they'll have to pay for it, these two poor girls."

Thus the curate's record was made. The news went through the parish like the wind, in all its details; dozens of people were stopped in the village going to the sale, and a little comforted for their disappointment by the exciting story. Some of the people thought it was poor Miss Brown, the _other_ Mrs. St. John, whom he was looking for.

Some felt it a strange heathenish sort of thing of him, a clergyman, that he should be thinking at that last moment of anything but the golden city with the gates of pearl; and thought there was a dreadful materialism in the cloak and hat. But most people felt a thrill of real emotion, and the moment he was dead, mourned Mr. St. John truly, declaring that Brentburn would never see the like of him again. Mrs.

Ascott cried so that she got a very bad headache, and was obliged to go and lie down. But she sent her maid to ask if they could do anything, and even postponed a dinner-party which was to have been that evening, which was a very gratifying token of respect. Mrs. Joel, who was perhaps at the other extremity of the social scale, cried too, but had no headache, and went off at once to the rectory to make herself useful, pulling all the blinds down, which Betsy had neglected, and telling all the callers that poor Miss Cicely was as well as could be expected, though "it have given her a dreadful shock." The trunks stood all ready packed and corded, with Mr. St. John's name upon them. But he had no need of them, though he had kept his word and left Brentburn on the appointed day. After a while people began to think that perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened--best for him certainly--he could never have borne the rooting up, they said--he could never have borne Liverpool, so noisy and quarrelsome. "Why, it would have killed him in a fortnight, such a place," said Mr. Ascott, who had not, however, lent a hand in any way to help him in his struggle against fate.

Mab, it is needless to say, came down at once with Aunt Jane, utterly crushed and helpless with sorrow. Poor Cicely, who was only beginning to realize what it was, and to make sure that her father absolutely was dead, and beyond the reach of all bringing back, had to rouse herself, and take her sister into her arms and console her. Mab sobbed quietly when she was in her sister's arms, feeling a sense of strong protection in them.

"I have still you, Cicely," she said, clinging to her.

"But Cicely has no one," said Aunt Jane, kissing the pale girl with that compa.s.sionate insight which age sometimes brings even to those who do not possess it by nature. "But it is best for you to have them all to look after, if you could but see it, my poor child!"

"I do see it," said Cicely--and then she had to disentangle herself from Mab's clinging, and to go out of the room where they had shut themselves up, to see somebody about the "arrangements," though indeed everybody was very kind and spared her as much as they could.