CHAPTER VI.

THE MISSES STANLEY.

The Misses Stanley were sitting up far into the night. They had been prostrated in the morning by the sultry oppression of the coming storm. Later, when it burst, and the blackened sky grew ablaze with lightning, and the very earth was trembling at the deafening thunder-claps, they fled to the cellar, closing and bolting the door, in that unreasoning panic which seizes even very sensible people when the heavens begin to utter their terrible voices; and there they gasped, and sighed, and panted, and listened, forgetting even the headache which a while before had nailed their heads to the pillow. "Ah!" they would whisper to each other, "did you hear that?--and that?--One of the chimneys has surely been struck! Can that be the rattle of the falling bricks? Is the roof coming down, do you think? Are we safe here?" and they caught each other's hands and pressed them tightly, and leaned against the door with all their might, to keep it shut against the danger.

"Do you hear that hissing? Has the house taken fire? Do you smell smoke?" It was only the first heavy downpour of the rain upon the resounding tin roof. The steady continuance of the monotone assured them of that in time, as the thunder grew intermittent and less loud. Even the hissing of the rain grew faint after a while, and there came a breath of cooler air down even into the locked-up cellar.

The terror was past, and they crept out of their hole again into the light, like the mice and the spiders and other timid folk. The storm was over and they were happy and safe. They had been able to eat no breakfast; dinner had been standing on the table cooling and getting spoiled while they were trembling in the cellar. So they had tea, and partook of it with relish. The air was purified by the storm; it was reviving to breathe it, and the world, seen through the open windows, though wet, was brightened and refreshed by the rain, like a young girl fresh from the luxury of a good cry.

It was sweet to be alive now, and drink in the scented air, so crisp and fresh, yet without a suspicion of cold; and a while since life had been a burden. The ladies sat and breathed, and sighed, and toyed with existence, and spoke softly to one another, and were silent; and evening wore on and night came, and still it was too pleasant to move. Their lamp was lighted--a dim one, with no garish gleam to disturb enjoyment within, or lure the flapping night-moths and beetles from without--and feeling hungry they thought they would have supper, a most unusual thing. It was but strawberries and cakes with lemonade and cold tea, but for them it was a carouse; they sat picking and sipping for very long, forgetful of time, and most other things, and bathed by gentle stirrings of the soothing air, restful and in soft shadow, while in the moonlit garden without, the white radiance was reflected and broken into a hundred glittering sparkles from every dripping leaf.

"I declare," said the younger sister, "midnight is decidedly the most enjoyable part of the day, at this time of year."

"It is long past midnight, Matilda," her sister answered, "I am afraid to look what hour of the morning it must be."

"Morning? To-morrow morning? This is to-morrow then! I like it; and if we go to bed it will be to-day when we get up again. I prefer to-morrow myself. Let's sit up all night, Tookey dear, and remain in the future 'till daylight does appear,' and turns it into to-day again. Commonplace affair that sun, compared to the moon, and disagreeably hot at this season, besides. I envy the owls, and mice, and bats, and things, coming out at night and sleeping all day. _I_ can't sleep in the daytime."

"The more need to go to bed at night. Come, Tilly!--or how shall we get up in the morning? Late rising puts everything out of joint for all day, and bothers the poor servants sadly."

"Bother the servants! By all means, say I. 'Never do to-morrow what should be done to-day.' You know that is a proverb! And this is to-morrow. It was you who said so; so let us sit still. I think I have proved my case."

"Pshaw, Matilda! don't be childish. And the downstairs windows still to shut up! Bring the light, dear. We'll make the round, and see that all is fast."

It was a nightly procession in which these two ladies walked through all the rooms on the ground floor. Miss Penelope the elder--called Tookey for short by her sister--went first, trying the locked doors, closing and bolting the windows, while Matilda with a candle held aloft, kept close beside her. It fluttered her heart to go into an empty room after dark, and it caught her breath to remain alone in the drawing-room while her sister made the rounds, so she accompanied her close, always within touching distance, and ready to scream should occasion arise. Last of all they closed the drawing-room windows, and barred the heavy inside shutters, provided with bells, so that no housebreaker should be able to enter without ringing; and then with their candlesticks in their hands, having extinguished the lamp, they stood taking a last look, as it were, on the scene of their waking existence, before wending upstairs to sleep and forgetfulness, when----

Bang! The sound seemed deafening, coming as it did so unexpectedly, in the night stillness, with all the world slumbering save themselves. Again! Not so loud this time, it seemed, with the ear already attentive. It was a knock at the hall door. And now the bell was rung, a jangling peal resounding through the house, and under cover of the uproar there was a crunching on the gravel as of hasty steps.

The sisters looked at one another with parted lips, and eyes that sought help and counsel and assurance each in the other's. Matilda assuredly had neither strength nor wisdom for their joint support, but her need was so great and she looked with such fervent trustfulness at her sister, that Penelope felt she must brace herself up and take courage for both, though her heart was faint within her. She was the object of a faith which supported by its helpless reliance, and stimulated her to effort that it might not prove misplaced. So strength ere now has been bred of double weakness, though in this case it was put forth but falteringly at first.

There was a shuffling now and a whispering in the lobby. Penelope held the door handle and listened. Matilda threw her weight against the door, expecting it would be burst open; but it was not, and thus they stood breathlessly awaiting some unspecified terror which did not arrive, till doubt grew too painful, and Penelope in very desperation flung wide the door. Three pale faces were disclosed blinking at the gleam of the ladies' candles, and Matilda screamed. An answering scream was raised by the three pale faces startled by the sudden flash of light in the darkened passage, and already prepared to be frightened by anything which might happen.

"How very foolish!" said Miss Penelope, who, having wrought herself up to do battle of some kind, had her nerves better in hand. "Do you not see it is the servants? Awakened by the noise, they have come downstairs, and seeing light in here at such an hour, supposed it was a thief. Now we must see who is at the front door."

"No, Penelope! I implore you, do not!"

"Oh, ma'am," said the cook, "if anything happens to _you_ what will become of _us?_" and the other maids looked deprecating in concert, while even Miss Matilda ejaculated, "What, indeed?"

"We cannot stand here all night! And we could not go to bed with burglars perhaps waiting on the doorstep till we are asleep."

"Think, Penelope, if they should burst in when we unbar the door!"

"They had better not. Is there not my father's gun?" and so saying she stepped on a chair to reach down that redoubtable weapon from where it rested on two brass hooks, high up over the fireplace in the hall. There it had rested ever since the decease of the late lamented Deputy Assistant Commissary General--called General for short, or perhaps for honour--the parent of the Misses Stanley.

"Oh, Tookey! don't!" cried Miss Matilda. "It might go off and hurt some one," and the maids drew up their shoulders to their ears, and looked apprehensive in chorus.

"Nonsense!" answered Miss Stanley severely. "Do you not see I am pointing it to the ceiling?"

"One never knows, such strange things happen with guns. The barrels burst, they say, or else they go off, and shoot the people they have no business to touch, and let others escape who really ought to have been hit. Remember how poor Major Hopkins' gun went off, nobody knew how, and killed papa's spaniel, and let the duck fly away. I shall never forget how cross poor papa was when he came home, and he never asked Major Hopkins to come again." And Miss Matilda looked regretful, as does the Historic Muse when she registers the might-have-beens. "Pray point the muzzle up the chimney, dear; it is safer."

Penelope, with a disdainful shrug, moved to the door, raised her firearm to her shoulder, and motioned the maids to undo the fastenings and open. They obeyed, and as the door flew back there entered a puff of wind which blew out the candles and made everybody scream--everybody except Miss Stanley. She, like a hero, stood to her gun, and pulled the trigger--she pulled it frequently, in fact, but as the piece was not loaded, that made no difference. Indeed, it was much better, her timid companions were saved the dreadful bang, while she herself had the heroic feeling of having shot a gang of burglars; that is, she would have shot them if her gun had been loaded, and they had been there to be shot. But they were not, fortunately for themselves. There was no one there at all. The band of affrighted females came slowly to realize the fact, as their panic subsided, and they re-lit the candles. "But who," they began to inquire, "could it be, who had knocked so loudly and rung the bell?" As their tremors abated they ventured out upon the verandah, which ran round the house, to reconnoitre. There was no one there, and again they grew uneasy. The visitant must have concealed himself in the shrubbery, and if so, he must certainly be evil-disposed. Miss Stanley took up her gun again; she had no misgiving about handling it now, and it looked as formidable as ever, for of course the man in the shrubbery could not know that it was unloaded, and she made sure he would not put its being so to the test.

"Here is a large parcel, ma'am!" cried the parlour-maid, "shall I bring it in? It is covered with old matting and tied with a shoe-string."

"Take care, Rhoda!" said Matilda. "Let us look at it first. I have heard of thieves tying themselves up in parcels in order to be taken into the houses they intended to rob. Perhaps you had better fire your gun into this, Penelope; I have known that to be done in a story with the best effects."

Miss Penelope came to look. "I think we may take this one in, Tilly, without fear. If it contains a man he cannot be very big. See! I can lift the bundle myself. Bring it in, Rhoda; we will examine it in the dining-room."

"It must be living, ma'am! I see it moving. Will it bite?" and she took it up suspiciously and with precaution.

A cry, small and plaintive, was now heard.

"Do you hear that?" said Miss Matilda, "mewing--I think. Can anybody have brought us a cat and kittens? A practical joke I suppose they think it. Yet I like kittens,--soft little balls of fluff and fun," she went on, putting on her gloves at the same time, "but strange cats may bite or scratch. Very impertinent, was it not, of the senders? They mean, I suppose, that we are old maids. Well! If we are, at least it is from choice, and I venture to say we are more comfortably situated than the husband or wife of this impertinent."

"Tush! sister," said Penelope, glancing to the servants standing at the lower end of the table and full of curiosity. "Have you a penknife? Quick! No cat ever mewed like that."

And now indeed it was a lusty cry, distinctly human and articulating mamma. The string was cut, the wrappings were kicked away by the struggling contents of the parcel, and a good-sized, healthy infant, well nourished, well clad, flushing red in the opening paroxysm of a big cry on waking, was disclosed to view.

"A little child!" cried Miss Matilda in transports.

"What a frightful din!" said Miss Stanley, putting her fingers in her ears. "To think that anything so small should make so much noise! What ever shall we do with it?"

"Give it some milk, of course; bathe it, put it to bed. That is what they always do with babies, I believe. Cook! get hot water at once--and a large basin--and some milk--and--and--everything else that is necessary. Quick! you others, and help her," she added, observing the lingering steps of the maids, yawning now, and utterly disgusted and wishing themselves back in bed, though a moment ago they had been all wakefulness and interest.

It was curious to see how Matilda took the lead, now that her sympathies were appealed to, while her practical sister, the mistress and manager of the establishment, stood aside bewildered and confused. She took the child in her arms and walked up and down, dandling it, singing, and purring forth floods of baby talk, till the little one stopped short in the middle of its lament to look at her, and ascertain who this voluble person might be. Then, finding she could make out nothing by her scrutiny, she prepared to resume with augmented vigour, but Matilda would not have it. She sat down with the doubter in her lap, bent over it, and made a bower for it with her curls, crooning more volubly than ever, and tickling it with the ringlet points, till the astonished infant grew confused, forgot that it had intended to scream, and presently was smiling and crowing and pulling the ringlets like bell-ropes.

Miss Matilda's ringlets were perhaps her most noticeable feature--long, waving, twining masses of falling hair; giving her face a pensive and romantic expression which has long ceased to be fashionable, though it once was greatly admired, as was also the poetry of Moore and Mrs. Hemans about the same time. In her youth, and that was not so many years before, an officer in Montreal--it was there the family lived then--had told her she looked like a muse, and not long after he was ordered away to the Crimean war. Her own father was ordered there too, but he said he owed a higher duty to his motherless daughters than to leave them, and he thought he owed it to his own ease not to let himself be sent ranging over Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, in search of transport mules and donkeys, and so he left the Service. He lingered in Montreal after the troops were withdrawn; but soon that community of busy traders grew insupportable in the absence of his fellow-loungers; he bought a farm near Saint Euphrase, and there established himself, carrying his daughters with him. He had already, as he told them, sacrificed his prospects of advancement to their need of a protector, and now it was for them to yield the social comforts of town life, bury themselves in the country, and with grateful assiduity make his home as comfortable, and his rheumatism as little intolerable as possible. After the fall of Sebastopol the troops returned to Canada, and "General" Stanley was able from time to time to relieve the monotony of his retirement with the society of old friends; but the officer who had called Matilda a muse never re-appeared, and no other gentleman since had said anything half as nice. So Matilda cherished her ringlets and her recollections--not very painful ones--and lived tranquilly on, with no event to mark the flight of years, till the death of her father, which took place some three or four years before the time I write of. After that the sisters lived on as before, only more retiredly still. Miss Penelope developed considerable business faculty in managing their affairs, and overlooking Jean Bruneau, the factotum on the farm; and dropped some of the feminine helplessnesses of her youth, though she was still as much in terror of thunder, burglars, fire and snakes as ever. Matilda having less need to exert her powers, continued the same ringletted damsel she had always been. She busied herself with her flowers and her birds, a little music not too difficult or new, a little poetry and fiction, and a good deal of kindness when the need for it was made plain to her. Her youth was passing or had passed into middle life, but the current of her days had been so even that she had not observed their flight. She had had no cares, and her heart slept peacefully, for it had never been awakened. Captain Lorrimer may have called her a muse, and Major Hopkins may have looked in her eyes, but these things had never been carried to a disturbing length; just enough to afford a little pensive self-consciousness, when she read of deserted maids, or Love's young dream, and make her fancy that she understood it all, and ejaculate that "it was so true." Then she would look up and shake her curls with a quite comfortable sigh, and her prosaic sister would watch her admiringly, and wonder where the men's eyes could have been that she was still unmarried. Perhaps it was well for her that she was so. Perhaps it would be well, at least it would be comfortable, for many of us if our hearts would sleep through life, and leave digestion to do its work in peace. How sweet and enjoyable to lead untroubled lives, free from the ecstasies alike of joy and woe, as do the flowers, as did this "muse"--this "grass of Parnassus"--basking in summer suns and drinking dews, without ambition or desire or strife.

But this is wandering. We left Miss Penelope desirous of getting to bed; and Miss Matilda engrossed in her new plaything.

"I shall certainly keep it, Penelope! The very thing of all others I should have liked best to have."

"Is not that rather an odd thing to say?"

"That I am charmed to have found a living doll?--I think it is quite natural. _You_ are too sensible, of course, but for other people--for me--it seems the most natural thing in the world. You know I always doted on dolls, especially when they could wink their eyes. This one can do that, and lots of other things besides. It will be delightful. And to think how I have been mourning the loss of my lame canary these last few days! You would not believe the tears I have shed every time I have looked at the empty cage, and how lonely I have felt; and here, in the middle of the night, just when we are going to bed, arrives this little pet! Is it not opportune? If I had awakened in the night, I might have thought of poor dicky, and then I should certainly have cried. Now I shall take this sweet little image with me, and if I awake, it will be to think how I can make up to it the loss of its mother; though indeed the mother who could find it in her breast to cast her off in this disgraceful way can be no loss."