MR. ST. John’s mind was very much moved by this conversation. It threw a shadow over his harmless life. He could not say good night or good morning to Miss Brown without feeling in his very soul the horror of the moment when he should have to say to her that he had no further need for her services. To say it to Hannah in the kitchen would have been dreadful enough, but in that case he could at least have employed Miss Brown, or even Cicely, to do it for him, whereas now he could employ no one. Sometimes, from the mere attraction of horror, he would rehearse it under his breath when he sat up late, and knew that no one was up in the rectory, or when he was alone on some quiet road at the other extremity of the parish. “I shall have no further need for your services.” Terrible formula! the mere thought of which froze the blood in his veins. This horror made him less sociable than he had ever been. He took no more of those evening walks which he had once liked in his quiet way,—when, the two girls speeding on before, with their restless feet, he would saunter along the twilight road after them, at ease and quiet, with his hands under his coat-tails; while little Miss Brown, generally a step or two behind, came trotting after him with her small steps, propounding little theological questions or moral doubts upon which she would like to have his opinion. The evening stillness, the shadowy, soft gloom about, the mild, grey mist of imperfect vision that made everything dreamy and vague, suited him better than the light and colour of the day. As he wandered on, in perfect repose and ease, with the two flitting figures before him, darting from side to side of the road, and from bush to bush of the common, their voices sounding like broken links of music; notwithstanding all that he had had in his life to wear him down, the curate was happy. Very often at the conclusion of these walks he would go through the churchyard and stand for a moment at the white cross over his wife’s grave. But this act did not change his mood; he went there as he might have gone had Hester been ill in bed, to say softly, “Good night, my dear,” through the closed curtains. She made him no reply; but she was well off and happy, dear soul! and why should not he be so too? And when he went in to supper after, he was always very cheerful; it was with him the friendliest moment of the day.
But this was all over since Miss Maydew’s visit; the thought of the moment, no doubt approaching, when he would have to say, “I shall have no further need for your services,” overwhelmed him. He had almost said it over like a parrot on several occasions, so poisoned was his mind by the horror that was to come. And Miss Maydew, I need not say, did not let any grass grow under her feet in the matter. She was so convinced of Miss Brown’s incapacity, and so eager in following out her own plan, and so much interested in the occupation it gave her, that her tranquil life was quite revolutionized by it. She went to call upon all her friends, and consulted them anxiously about the young ladies’ schools they knew. “It must not be too expensive, but it must be very good,” she told all her acquaintances, who were, like most other people, struck with respect by the name of St. John. Almost an excitement arose in that quiet, respectable neighbourhood, penetrating even into those stately houses in Russell Square, at two or three of which Miss Maydew visited. “Two very sweet girls, the daughters of a clergyman, the sort of girls whom it would be an advantage to any establishment to receive,” Miss Maydew’s friend said; and the conclusion was, that the old lady found “vacancies” for her nieces in the most unexpected way in a school of very high pretensions indeed, which gladly accepted, on lower terms than usual, girls so well recommended, and with so well-sounding a name. She wrote with triumph in her heart to their father as soon as she had arrived at this summit of her wishes, and, I need not say, carried despair to his. But even after he had received two or three warnings, Mr. St. John could not screw his courage to the sticking point for the terrible step that was required of him; and it was only a letter from Miss Maydew, announcing her speedy arrival to escort the girls to their school, and her desire that their clothes should be got ready, that forced him into action. A more miserable man was not in all the country than, when thus compelled by fate, the curate was. He had not been able to sleep all night for thinking of this dreadful task before him. He was not able to eat any breakfast, and the girls were consulting together what could be the matter with papa when he suddenly came into the schoolroom, where Miss Brown sat placidly at the large deal table, setting copies in her neat little hand. All his movements were so quiet and gentle that the abruptness of his despair filled the girls with surprise and dismay.
“Papa came flouncing in,” Mab said, who was partly touched and partly indignant—indignant at being sent off to school, touched by the sight of his evident emotion. The girls believed that this emotion was called forth by the idea of parting with them; they did not know that it was in reality a mixture of fright and horror as to how he was to make that terrible announcement to Miss Brown.
“My dears,” he said, faltering, “I have got a letter from your aunt Jane. I am afraid it will take you by surprise as—as it has done me. She wants you to—go—to school.”
“To school!” they cried both together, in unfeigned horror and alarm. Miss Brown, who had been ruling her copybooks very nicely, acknowledging Mr. St. John’s entrance only by a smile, let the pencil drop out of her hand.
“It is—very sudden,” he said, trembling—“very sudden. Your poor aunt is that kind of woman. She means to be very kind to you, my dears; and she has made up her mind that you must be educated——”
“Educated! Are we not being educated now? Miss Brown teaches us everything—everything we require to know,” said Cicely, her colour rising, planting herself in front of the governess; as she had sprung up to defend her sister, when Miss Maydew saw her first. At that age Cicely was easily moved to indignation, and started forward perhaps too indiscriminately in behalf of any one who might be assailed. She was ready to put Miss Brown upon the highest pedestal, whenever a word was said in her disfavour.
“So I think, my dear; so I think,” said the frightened curate. “I made that very remark to your aunt; but it is very difficult to struggle against the impetuosity of a lady, and—and perhaps being taken by surprise, I—acquiesced more easily than I ought.”
“But we won’t go—we can’t go,” cried Mab. “I shall die, and Cicely will die, if we are sent away from home.”
“My dears!” said poor Mr. St. John—this impetuosity was terrible to him—“you must not say so; indeed you must not say so. What could I say to your aunt? She means to give you all she has, and how could I oppose her? She means it for the best. I am sure she means it for the best.”
“And did you really consent,” said Cicely, seriously, looking him straight in the eyes, “without ever saying a word to us, or to Miss Brown? Oh, papa, I could not have believed it of you! I hate Aunt Jane! Miss Brown, dear!” cried the girl, throwing her arms suddenly round the little governess, “it is not Mab’s fault nor mine!”
Then it was Miss Brown’s turn to fall upon the unhappy curate and slay him. “My dear love,” she said, “how could I suppose it was your fault or Mab’s? Except a little levity now and then, which was to be expected at your age, you have been very good, very good children. There is no fault at all in the matter,” she continued, turning with that magnanimity of the aggrieved which is so terrible to an offender, to Mr. St. John. “Perhaps it is a little sudden; perhaps a person so fond of the girls as I am might have been expected to be consulted as to the best school; for there is a great difference in schools. But Miss Maydew is very impetuous, and I don’t blame your dear papa. When do you wish me to leave, sir?” she said, looking at him with a smile, which tortured the curate, upon her lips.
“Miss Brown, I hope you will not think badly of me,” he said. “You can’t think how hard all this is upon me.”
The little woman rose up, and waved her hand with dignity. “We must not enter into such questions,” she said; “if you will be so very kind as to tell me when you would like me to go.”
I don’t know what incoherent words the curate stammered forth: that she should stay as long as she liked; that she must make her arrangements entirely to suit herself; that he had never thought of wishing her to go. This was what he said in much disturbance and agitation of mind instead of the other formula he had rehearsed about having no further need for her services. All this Miss Brown received with the pale smiling of the injured and magnanimous; while the girls looked fiercely on their father, leaving him alone and undefended. When he got away he was so exhausted that he did not feel able to go out into the parish, but withdrew to his study, where he lurked, half paralyzed, all the rest of the day, like the criminal abandoned by woman and by man, which he felt himself to be.
And I will not attempt to describe the commotion which this announcement raised in the rest of the house. Miss Brown kept up that smile of magnanimous meekness all day. She would not give in. “No, my dears,” she said, “there is nothing to be said except that it is a little sudden. I think your papa is quite right, and that you are getting beyond me.”
“It is not papa,” said Cicely; “it is that horrible Aunt Jane.”
“And she was quite right,” said the magnanimous governess; “quite right. She saw that I was not strong enough. It is a little sudden, that is all; and we must not make mountains out of mole-hills, my dears.” But she, too, retired to her room early, where, sitting forlorn at the window, she had a good cry, poor soul; for she had begun to grow fond of this rude solitude, and she had no home.
As for the girls, after their first dismay and wrath the tide turned with them. They were going out into the unknown, words which sound so differently to different ears—so miserable to some, so exciting to others. To Cicely and Mab they were exciting only. A new world, new faces, new people to know, new places to see, new things to hear; gradually they forgot their wrath alike and their emotion at this thought. A thrill of awe, of fear, of delicious curiosity and wonder ran through them. This checked upon their very lips those reproaches which they had been pouring forth, addressed to their father and to Aunt Jane. Would they be miserable after all? should not they, rather, on the whole, like it, if it was not wrong to say so? This first silenced, then insinuated into their lips little broken words, questions and wonderings which betrayed to each the other’s feelings. “It might be—fun, perhaps,” Mab said at last; then looked up frightened at Cicely, wondering if her sister would metaphorically kill her for saying so. But then a gleam in Cicely’s eyes looked as if she thought so too.
Miss Brown set about very bravely next morning to get their things in order. She was very brave and determined to be magnanimous, but I cannot say that she was cheerful. It is true that she kept smiling all day long, like Malvolio, though with the better motive of concealing her disappointment and pain and unjust feeling; but the effect of this smile was depressing. She was determined, whatever might happen, to do her duty to the last: and then, what did it matter what should follow? With this valiant resolution she faced the crisis and nobly took up all its duties. She bought I don’t know how many dozens of yards of nice “long-cloth,” and cut out and made up, chiefly with the sewing-machine, garments which she discreetly called “under-clothing” for the girls; for her delicacy shunned the familiar names of those indispensable articles. She found it needful that they should have new Sunday frocks, and engaged the parish dressmaker for a week, and went herself to town to buy the stuff, after the girls and she had spent an anxious yet not unpleasant afternoon in looking over patterns. All this she did, and never a word of murmur escaped her lips. She was a heroic woman. And the busy days pursued each other so rapidly that the awful morning came, and the girls weeping, yet not uncheerful, were swept away by the “fly” from the station—where Miss Maydew, red and excited, met them, and carried them off remorseless on their further way—before any one had time to breathe, much less to think. Mr. St. John went to the station with his daughters, and coming back alone and rather sad, for the first time forgot Miss Brown; so that when he heard a low sound of the piano in the schoolroom he was half frightened, and, without thinking, went straight to the forsaken room to see what it was. Poor curate!—unfortunate Mr. St. John! and not less unfortunate Miss Brown. The music had ceased before he reached the door, and when he went in nothing was audible but a melancholy little sound of sobbing and crying. Miss Brown was sitting before the old piano with her head bowed down in her hands. Her little sniffs and sobs were pitiful to hear. When he spoke she gave a great start, and got up trembling, wiping her tears hastily away with her handkerchief. “Did you speak, sir?” she said, with her usual attempt at cheerfulness. “I hope I did not disturb you; I was—amusing myself a little, until it is time for my train. My th-things are all packed and r-ready,” said the poor little woman, making a deplorable effort at a smile. The sobs in her voice struck poor Mr. St. John to the very heart.
“I have never had time,” he said in the tone of a self-condemned criminal, “to ask where you are going, Miss Brown.”
“Oh yes, I have a pl-place to go to,” she said. “I have written to the Governesses’ Institution, Mr. St. John, and very fo-fortunately they have a vacant room.”
“The Governesses’ Institution! Is that the only place you have to go to?” he said.
“Indeed, it is a very nice place,” said Miss Brown; “very quiet and lady-like, and not d-dear. I have, excuse me, I have got so fo-fond of them. I never meant to cry. It is in Harley Street, Mr. St. John, very nice and respectable, and a great b-blessing to have such a place, when one has no h-home.”
Mr. St. John walked to the other end of the room, and then back again, twice over. How conscience-stricken he was! While poor Miss Brown bit her lips and winked her eyelids to keep the tears away. Oh, why couldn’t he go away, and let her have her cry out? But he did not do that. He stopped short at the table where she had set so many sums and cut out so much underclothing, and half turning his back upon her said, faltering, “Would it not be better to stay here, Miss Brown?”
The little governess blushed from head to foot, I am sure, if any one could have seen; she felt thrills of confusion run all over her at such a suggestion. “Oh, no, no,” she cried, “you are very kind, Mr. St. John, but I have nobody but myself to take care of now, and I could not stay here, a day, not now the girls are gone.”
The poor curate did not move. He took off the lid of the big inkstand and examined it as if that were what he was thinking of. The Governesses’ Institution sounded miserable to him, and what could he do? “Miss Brown,” he said in a troubled voice, “if you think you would like to marry me, I have no objection; and then you know you could stay.”
“Mr. St. John!”
“Yes; that is the only thing I can think of,” he said, with a sigh. “After being here for years, how can you go to a Governesses’ Institution? Therefore, if you think you would like it, Miss Brown——”
How can I relate what followed? “Oh, Mr. St. John, you are speaking out of pity, only pity!” said the little woman, with a sudden romantic gleam of certainty that he must have been a victim of despairing love for her all this time, and that the school-going of the girls was but a device for bringing out his passion. But Mr. St. John did not deny this charge, as she expected he would. “I don’t know about pity,” he said, confused, “but I am very sorry, and—and I don’t see any other way.”
This was how it happened that three weeks after the girls went to school Mr. St. John married Miss Brown. She went to the Governesses’ Institution after all, resolute in her propriety, until the needful interval had passed, and then she came back as Mrs. St. John, to her own great surprise, and to the still greater surprise and consternation of the curate himself, and of the parish, who could not believe their ears. I need not say that Miss Maydew was absolutely furious, or that it was a great shock to Cicely and Mab when they were told what had happened. They did not trust themselves to say much to each other on the subject. It was the only subject, indeed, which they did not discuss between themselves; but by-and-by even they got used to it, as people do to everything, and they were quite friendly, though distant, to Mrs. St. John.
Only one other important event occurred to that poor little woman in her life. A year after her marriage she had twin boys, to the still greater consternation of the curate; and three years after this she died. Thus the unfortunate man was left once more with two helpless children on his hands, as helpless himself as either of them, and again subject as before to the advice of all the parish. They counselled him this time “a good nurse,” not a governess; but fortunately other actors appeared on the scene before he had time to see the excellent creature whom Mrs. Brockmill, of Fir Tree House, knew of. While he listened hopelessly, a poor man of sixty-five, casting piteous looks at the two babies whom he had no right, he knew, to have helped into the world, Cicely and Mab, with bright faces and flying feet, were already on the way to his rescue; and here, dear reader, though you may think you already know something of it, this true story really begins.