Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (100 page)

“No, indeed, Shirley; you will not manage properly. I have often noticed that your only notion of charity is to give shillings and half-crowns in a careless, free-handed sort of way, which is liable to continual abuse. You must have a prime minister, or you will get yourself into a series of scrapes. You suggested Miss Ainley yourself; to Miss Ainley I will apply. And, meantime, promise to keep quiet, and not begin throwing away your money. What a great deal you have, Shirley! You must feel very rich with all that?”

“Yes; I feel of consequence. It is not an immense sum, but I feel responsible for its disposal; and really this responsibility weighs on my mind more heavily than I could have expected. They say that there are some families almost starving to death in Briarfield. Some of my own cottagers are in wretched circumstances. I must and will help them.”

“Some people say we shouldn’t give alms to the poor, Shirley.”

“They are great fools for their pains. For those who are not hungry, it is easy to palaver about the degradation of charity, and so on: but they forget the brevity of life, as well as its bitterness. We have none of us long to live. Let us help each other through seasons of want and woe as well as we can, without heeding in the least the scruples of vain philosophy.”

“But you do help others, Shirley. You give a great deal as it is.”

“Not enough. I must give more, or, I tell you, my brother’s blood will some day be crying to Heaven against me. For, after all, if political incendiaries come here to kindle conflagration in the neighbourhood, and my property is attacked, I shall defend it like a tigress — I know I shall. Let me listen to Mercy as long as she is near me. Her voice once drowned by the shout of ruffian defiance, and I shall be full of impulses to resist and quell. If once the poor gather and rise in the form of the mob, I shall turn against them as an aristocrat; if they bully me, I must defy: if they attack, I must resist, and I will.”

“You talk like Robert.”

“I feel like Robert, only more fierily. Let them meddle with Robert, or Robert’s mill, or Robert’s interests, and I shall hate them. At present I am no patrician, nor do I regard the poor around me as plebeians; but if once they violently wrong me or mine, and then presume to dictate to us, I shall quite forget pity for their wretchedness and respect for their poverty, in scorn of their ignorance and wrath at their insolence.”

“Shirley, how your eyes flash!”

“Because my soul burns. Would you, any more than me, let Robert be borne down by numbers?”

“If I had your power to aid Robert, I would use it as you mean to use it. If I could be such a friend to him as you can be, I would stand by him, as you mean to stand by him, till death.”

“And now, Lina, though your eyes don’t flash, they glow. You drop your lids; but I saw a kindled spark. However, it is not yet come to fighting. What I want to do is to
prevent
mischief. I cannot forget, either day or night, that these embittered feelings of the poor against the rich have been generated in suffering: they would neither hate nor envy us if they did not deem us so much happier than themselves. To allay this suffering, and thereby lessen this hate, let me, out of my abundance, give abundantly; and that the donation may go farther, let it be made wisely. To that intent, we must introduce some clear, calm, practical sense into our councils. So go and fetch Miss Ainley.”

Without another word Caroline put on her bonnet and departed. It may, perhaps, appear strange that neither she nor Shirley thought of consulting Mrs. Pryor on their scheme; but they were wise in abstaining. To have consulted her — and this they knew by instinct — would only have been to involve her in painful embarrassment. She was far better informed, better read, a deeper thinker than Miss Ainley, but of administrative energy, of executive activity, she had none. She would subscribe her own modest mite to a charitable object willingly — secret almsgiving suited her; but in public plans, on a large scale, she could take no part; as to originating them, that was out of the question. This Shirley knew, and therefore she did not trouble Mrs. Pryor by unavailing conferences, which could only remind her of her own deficiencies, and do no good.

It was a bright day for Miss Ainley when she was summoned to Fieldhead to deliberate on projects so congenial to her; when she was seated with all honour and deference at a table with paper, pen, ink, and — what was best of all — cash before her, and requested to draw up a regular plan for administering relief to the destitute poor of Briarfield. She, who knew them all, had studied their wants, had again and again felt in what way they might best be succoured, could the means of succour only be found, was fully competent to the undertaking, and a meek exultation gladdened her kind heart as she felt herself able to answer clearly and promptly the eager questions put by the two young girls, as she showed them in her answers how much and what serviceable knowledge she had acquired of the condition of her fellow-creatures around her.

Shirley placed at her disposal £300, and at sight of the money Miss Ainley’s eyes filled with joyful tears; for she already saw the hungry fed, the naked clothed, the sick comforted thereby. She quickly drew up a simple, sensible plan for its expenditure; and she assured them brighter times would now come round, for she doubted not the lady of Fieldhead’s example would be followed by others. She should try to get additional subscriptions, and to form a fund; but first she must consult the clergy. Yes, on that point she was peremptory. Mr. Helstone, Dr. Boultby, Mr. Hall,
must
be consulted (for not only must Briarfield be relieved, but Whinbury and Nunnely). It would, she averred, be presumption in her to take a single step unauthorized by them.

The clergy were sacred beings in Miss Ainley’s eyes; no matter what might be the insignificance of the individual, his station made him holy. The very curates — who, in their trivial arrogance, were hardly worthy to tie her patten-strings, or carry her cotton umbrella, or check woollen shawl — she, in her pure, sincere enthusiasm, looked upon as sucking saints. No matter how clearly their little vices and enormous absurdities were pointed out to her, she could not see them; she was blind to ecclesiastical defects; the white surplice covered a multitude of sins.

Shirley, knowing this harmless infatuation on the part of her recently-chosen prime minister, stipulated expressly that the curates were to have no voice in the disposal of the money, that their meddling fingers were not to be inserted into the pie. The rectors, of course, must be paramount, and they might be trusted. They had some experience, some sagacity, and Mr. Hall, at least, had sympathy and loving-kindness for his fellow-men; but as for the youth under them, they must be set aside, kept down, and taught that subordination and silence best became their years and capacity.

It was with some horror Miss Ainley heard this language. Caroline, however, interposing with a mild word or two in praise of Mr Sweeting, calmed her again. Sweeting was, indeed, her own favourite. She endeavoured to respect Messrs. Malone and Donne, but the slices of sponge-cake and glasses of cowslip or primrose wine she had at different times administered to Sweeting, when he came to see her in her little cottage, were ever offered with sentiments of truly motherly regard. The same innocuous collation she had once presented to Malone; but that personage evinced such open scorn of the offering, she had never ventured to renew it. To Donne she always served the treat, and was happy to see his approbation of it proved beyond a doubt by the fact of his usually eating two pieces of cake, and putting a third in his pocket.

Indefatigable in her exertions where good was to be done, Miss Ainley would immediately have set out on a walk of ten miles round to the three rectors, in order to show her plan, and humbly solicit their approval; but Miss Keeldar interdicted this, and proposed, as an amendment, to collect the clergy in a small select reunion that evening at Fieldhead. Miss Ainley was to meet them, and the plan was to be discussed in full privy council.

Shirley managed to get the senior priesthood together accordingly, and before the old maid’s arrival, she had, further, talked all the gentlemen into the most charming mood imaginable. She herself had taken in hand Dr. Boultby and Mr. Helstone. The first was a stubborn old Welshman, hot, opinionated, and obstinate, but withal a man who did a great deal of good, though not without making some noise about it. The latter we know. She had rather a friendly feeling for both, especially for old Helstone; and it cost her no trouble to be quite delightful to them. She took them round the garden; she gathered them flowers; she was like a kind daughter to them. Mr. Hall she left to Caroline — or rather, it was to Caroline’s care Mr. Hall consigned himself.

He generally sought Caroline in every party where she and he happened to be. He was not in general a lady’s man, though all ladies liked him; something of a book-worm he was, near-sighted, spectacled, now and then abstracted. To old ladies he was kind as a son. To men of every occupation and grade he was acceptable. The truth, simplicity, frankness of his manners, the nobleness of his integrity, the reality and elevation of his piety, won him friends in every grade. His poor clerk and sexton delighted in him; the noble patron of his living esteemed him highly. It was only with young, handsome, fashionable, and stylish ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain man — plain in aspect, plain in manners, plain in speech — he seemed to fear their dash, elegance, and airs. But Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her native elegance was of a very quiet order — quiet as the beauty of a ground-loving hedge-flower. He was a fluent, cheerful, agreeable talker. Caroline could talk too in a
tête-à-tête
. She liked Mr. Hall to come and take the seat next her in a party, and thus secure her from Peter Augustus Malone, Joseph Donne, or John Sykes; and Mr. Hall never failed to avail himself of this privilege when he possibly could. Such preference shown by a single gentleman to a single lady would certainly, in ordinary cases, have set in motion the tongues of the gossips; but Cyril Hall was forty-five years old, slightly bald, and slightly gray, and nobody ever said or thought he was likely to be married to Miss Helstone. Nor did he think so himself. He was wedded already to his books and his parish. His kind sister Margaret, spectacled and learned like himself, made him happy in his single state; he considered it too late to change. Besides, he had known Caroline as a pretty little girl. She had sat on his knee many a time; he had bought her toys and given her books; he felt that her friendship for him was mixed with a sort of filial respect; he could not have brought himself to attempt to give another colour to her sentiments, and his serene mind could glass a fair image without feeling its depths troubled by the reflection.

When Miss Ainley arrived, she was made kindly welcome by every one. Mrs. Pryor and Margaret Hall made room for her on the sofa between them; and when the three were seated, they formed a trio which the gay and thoughtless would have scorned, indeed, as quite worthless and unattractive — a middle-aged widow and two plain, spectacled old maids — yet which had its own quiet value, as many a suffering and friendless human being knew.

Shirley opened the business and showed the plan.

“I know the hand which drew up that,” said Mr. Hall, glancing at Miss Ainley, and smiling benignantly. His approbation was won at once. Boultby heard and deliberated with bent brow and protruded under lip. His consent he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry. Helstone glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious expression, as if he apprehended that female craft was at work, and that something in petticoats was somehow trying underhand to acquire too much influence, and make itself of too much importance. Shirley caught and comprehended the expression. “This scheme is nothing,” said she carelessly. “It is only an outline — a mere suggestion. You, gentlemen, are requested to draw up rules of your own.”

And she directly fetched her writing-case, smiling queerly to herself as she bent over the table where it stood. She produced a sheet of paper, a new pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and presenting her hand to old Helstone, begged permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a little stiff, and stood wrinkling his copper-coloured forehead strangely. At last he muttered, “Well, you are neither my wife nor my daughter, so I’ll be led for once; but mind — I know I
am
led. Your little female manœuvres don’t blind me.”

“Oh!” said Shirley, dipping the pen in the ink, and putting it into his hand, “you must regard me as Captain Keeldar to-day. This is quite a gentleman’s affair — yours and mine entirely, doctor” (so she had dubbed the rector). “The ladies there are only to be our aides-de-camp, and at their peril they speak, till we have settled the whole business.”

He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He soon interrupted himself to ask questions, and consult his brethren, disdainfully lifting his glance over the curly heads of the two girls and the demure caps of the elder ladies, to meet the winking glasses and gray pates of the priests. In the discussion which ensued, all three gentlemen, to their infinite credit, showed a thorough acquaintance with the poor of their parishes — an even minute knowledge of their separate wants. Each rector knew where clothing was needed, where food would be most acceptable, where money could be bestowed with a probability of it being judiciously laid out. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall, if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care not to speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be foremost, but each sincerely desired to be useful; and useful the clergy consented to make them — with which boon they were content.