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.
CHAPTER V
THE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
THE school to which Miss Maydew sent the girls was in the outskirts of a seaside town, and it was neither the best nor the worst of such establishments. There were some things which all the girls had to submit to, and some which bore especially on the Miss St. Johns, who had been received at a lower price than most of the others; but on the whole the Miss Blandys were good women, and not unkind to the pupils. Cicely and Mab, as sisters, had a room allotted to them in the upper part of the house by themselves, which was a great privilege – a bare attic room, with, on one side, a sloping roof, no carpet, except a small piece before each small bed, and the most meagre furniture possible. But what did they care for that? They had two chairs on which to sit and chatter facing each other, and a little table for their books and their work. They had a peep at the sea from their window, and they had their youth – what could any one desire more? In the winter nights, when it was cold sitting up in their fireless room, they used to lie down in those two little beds side by side and talk, often in the dark, for the lights had to be extinguished at ten o’clock. They had not spoken even to each other of their father’s marriage. This unexpected event had shocked and bewildered them in the fantastic delicacy of their age. They could not bear to think of their father as so far descended from his ideal elevation, and shed secret tears of rage more than of sorrow when they thought of their mother thus superseded. But the event was too terrible for words, and nothing whatever was said of it between them. When the next great occurrence, the birth of the two babies, was intimated to them, their feelings were different. They were first indignant, almost annoyed; then amused; in which stage Mab made such a sketch of Miss Brown with a baby in each arm, and Mr. St. John pathetically looking on, that they both burst forth into laughter, and the bond of reserve on this event was broken; and then all at once an interest of which they were half ashamed arose in their minds. They fell silent both together in a wondering reverie, and then Mab said to Cicely, turning to her big eyes of surprise —
“They belong to us too, I suppose. What are they to us?”
“Of course our half-brothers,” said Cicely; and then there was another pause, partly of awe at the thought of a relationship so mysterious, and partly because it was within five minutes of ten. Then the candle was put out, and they jumped into their beds. On the whole, perhaps, it was more agreeable to talk of their father’s other children in the dark, when the half-shame, half-wonder of it would not appear in each face.
“Is one expected to be fond of one’s half-brother?” said Mab doubtfully.
“There is one illusion gone,” said Cicely, in all the seriousness of sixteen. “I have always been cherishing the idea that when we were quite grown up, instead of going out for governesses or anything of that sort, we might keep together, Mab, and take care of papa.”
“But then,” said Mab, “what would you have done with Mrs. St. John? I don’t see that the babies make much difference. She is there to take care of papa.”
On this Cicely gave an indignant sigh, but having no answer ready held her peace.
“For my part, I never thought of that,” said Mab. “I have always thought it such a pity I am not a boy, for then I should have been the brother and you the sister, and I could have painted and you could have kept my house. I’ll tell you what I should like,” she continued, raising herself on her elbow with the excitement of the thought; “I should like if we two could go out into the world like Rosalind and Celia.
‘Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me all points like a man?’”
“But you are not more than common tall,” said Cicely, with unsympathetic laughter; “you are a little, tiny, insignificant thing.”
Mab dropped upon her pillow half-crying. “You have no feeling,” she said. “Aunt Jane says I shall go on growing for two years yet. Mamma did – ”
“If you please,” said Cicely, “you are not the one that is like mamma.”
This little passage of arms stopped the chatter. Cicely, penitent, would have renewed it after an interval, but Mab was affronted. Their father’s marriage, however, made a great difference to the girls, even before the appearance of the “second family;” the fact that he had now another housekeeper and companion, and was independent of them affected the imagination of his daughters, though they were scarcely conscious of it. They no longer thought of going home, even for the longer holidays; and settling down at home after their schooling was over had become all at once impossible. Not that this change led them immediately to make new plans for themselves; for the youthful imagination seldom goes so far unguided except when character is very much developed; and the two were only unsettled, uneasy, not quite knowing what was to become of them; or rather, it was Cicely who felt the unsettledness and uneasiness as to her own future. Mab had never had any doubt about hers since she was ten years old. She had never seen any pictures to speak of, so that I cannot say she was a heaven-born painter, for she scarcely understood what that was. But she meant to draw; her pencil was to be her profession, though she scarcely knew how it was to be wielded, and thus she was delivered from all her sister’s vague feelings of uncertainty. Mab’s powers, however, had not been appreciated at first at school, where Miss Maydew’s large assertions as to her niece’s cleverness had raised corresponding expectations. But when the drawing-master came with his little stock of landscapes to be copied, Mab, quite untutored in this kind, was utterly at a loss. She neither knew how to manage her colours, nor how to follow the vague lines of the “copy,” and I cannot describe the humiliation of the sisters, nor the half disappointment, half triumph, of Miss Blandy.
“My dear, you must not be discouraged; I am sure you did as well as you could; and the fact is, we have a very high standard here,” the school-mistress said.
It happened, however, after two or three of these failures that Cicely, sent by Miss Millicent Blandy on a special message into that retired and solemn chamber, where Miss Blandy the elder sister sat in the mornings supervising and correcting everything, from the exercises to the characters of her pupils, found the head of the establishment with the drawing-master looking over the productions of the week. He had Mab’s drawing in his hand, and he was shaking his head over it.
“I don’t know what to say about the youngest Miss St. John. This figure is well put in, but her sky and her distance are terrible,” he was saying. “I don’t think I shall make anything of her.”
When Cicely heard this she forgot that she was a girl at school. She threw down a pile of books she was carrying, and flew out of the room without a word, making a great noise with the door. What she ought to have done was to have made a curtsy, put down the books softly by Miss Blandy’s elbow, curtsied again, and left the room noiselessly, in all respects save that of walking backward as she would have done at Court. Need I describe the look of dismay that came into Miss Blandy’s face?
“These girls will be my death,” she said. “Were there ever
