Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (99 page)

“Perhaps not. But tell Fanny to go in. Say we are coming. A few minutes will make no difference.”

The church clock struck ten.

“My uncle will be coming out to take his usual sentinel round, and he always surveys the church and churchyard.”

“And if he does? If it were not for Fanny, who knows we are here, I should find pleasure in dodging and eluding him. We could be under the east window when he is at the porch; as he came round to the north side we could wheel off to the south; we might at a pinch hide behind some of the monuments. That tall erection of the Wynnes would screen us completely.”

“Robert, what good spirits you have! Go! go!” added Caroline hastily. “I hear the front door —
 
— “

“I don’t want to go; on the contrary, I want to stay.”

“You know my uncle will be terribly angry. He forbade me to see you because you are a Jacobin.”

“A queer Jacobin!”

“Go, Robert, he is coming; I hear him cough.”

“Diable! It is strange — what a pertinacious wish I feel to stay!”

“You remember what he did to Fanny’s — “ began Caroline, and stopped abruptly short. “Sweetheart” was the word that ought to have followed, but she could not utter it. It seemed calculated to suggest ideas she had no intention to suggest — ideas delusive and disturbing. Moore was less scrupulous. “Fanny’s sweetheart?” he said at once. “He gave him a shower-bath under the pump, did he not? He’d do as much for me, I dare say, with pleasure. I should like to provoke the old Turk — not, however, against you. But he would make a distinction between a cousin and a lover, would he not?”

“Oh, he would not think of you in that way, of course not; his quarrel with you is entirely political. Yet I should not like the breach to be widened, and he is so testy. Here he is at the garden gate. For your own sake and mine, Robert, go!”

The beseeching words were aided by a beseeching gesture and a more beseeching look. Moore covered her clasped hands an instant with his, answered her upward by a downward gave, gaze said “Good-night!” and went.

Caroline was in a moment at the kitchen door behind Fanny. The shadow of the shovel-hat at that very instant fell on a moonlit tomb. The rector emerged, erect as a cane, from his garden, and proceeded in slow march, his hands behind him, down the cemetery. Moore was almost caught. He had to “dodge” after all, to coast round the church, and finally to bend his tall form behind the Wynnes’ ambitious monument. There he was forced to hide full ten minutes, kneeling with one knee on the turf, his hat off, his curls bare to the dew, his dark eye shining, and his lips parted with inward laughter at his position; for the rector meantime stood coolly star-gazing, and taking snuff within three feet of him.

It happened, however, that Mr. Helstone had no suspicion whatever on his mind; for being usually but vaguely informed of his niece’s movements, not thinking it worth while to follow them closely, he was not aware that she had been out at all that day, and imagined her then occupied with book or work in her chamber — where, indeed, she was by this time, though not absorbed in the tranquil employment he ascribed to her, but standing at her window with fast-throbbing heart, peeping anxiously from behind the blind, watching for her uncle to re-enter and her cousin to escape. And at last she was gratified. She heard Mr. Helstone come in; she saw Robert stride the tombs and vault the wall; she then went down to prayers. When she returned to her chamber, it was to meet the memory of Robert. Slumber’s visitation was long averted. Long she sat at her lattice, long gazed down on the old garden and older church, on the tombs laid out all gray and calm, and clear in moonlight. She followed the steps of the night, on its pathway of stars, far into the “wee sma’ hours ayont the twal’.” She was with Moore, in spirit, the whole time; she was at his side; she heard his voice; she gave her hand into his hand; it rested warm in his fingers. When the church clock struck, when any other sound stirred, when a little mouse familiar to her chamber — an intruder for which she would never permit Fanny to lay a trap — came rattling amongst the links of her locket-chain, her one ring, and another trinket or two on the toilet-table, to nibble a bit of biscuit laid ready for it, she looked up, recalled momentarily to the real. Then she said half aloud, as if deprecating the accusation of some unseen and unheard monitor, “I am not cherishing love dreams; I am only thinking because I cannot sleep. Of course, I know he will marry Shirley.”

With returning silence, with the lull of the chime, and the retreat of her small untamed and unknown
protégé
, she still resumed the dream, nestling to the vision’s side — listening to, conversing with it. It paled at last. As dawn approached, the setting stars and breaking day dimmed the creation of fancy; the wakened song of birds hushed her whispers. The tale full of fire, quick with interest, borne away by the morning wind, became a vague murmur. The shape that, seen in a moonbeam, lived, had a pulse, had movement, wore health’s glow and youth’s freshness, turned cold and ghostly gray, confronted with the red of sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last. She crept to her couch, chill and dejected.

CHAPTER XIV.

SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS.

“Of course, I know he will marry Shirley,” were her first words when she rose in the morning. “And he ought to marry her. She can help him,” she added firmly. “But I shall be forgotten when they
are
married,” was the cruel succeeding thought. “Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten! And what —
what
shall I do when Robert is taken quite from me? Where shall I turn?
My
Robert! I wish I could justly call him mine. But I am poverty and incapacity; Shirley is wealth and power. And she is beauty too, and love. I cannot deny it. This is no sordid suit. She loves him — not with inferior feelings. She loves, or
will
love, as he must feel proud to be loved. Not a valid objection can be made. Let them be married, then. But afterwards I shall be nothing to him. As for being his sister, and all that stuff, I despise it. I will either be all or nothing to a man like Robert; no feeble shuffling or false cant is endurable. Once let that pair be united, and I will certainly leave them. As for lingering about, playing the hypocrite, and pretending to calm sentiments of friendship, when my soul will be wrung with other feelings, I shall not descend to such degradation. As little could I fill the place of their mutual friend as that of their deadly foe; as little could I stand between them as trample over them. Robert is a first-rate man — in my eyes. I
have
loved,
do
love, and
must
love him. I would be his wife if I could; as I cannot, I must go where I shall never see him. There is but one alternative — to cleave to him as if I were a part of him, or to be sundered from him wide as the two poles of a sphere. — Sunder me then, Providence. Part us speedily.”

Some such aspirations as these were again working in her mind late in the afternoon, when the apparition of one of the personages haunting her thoughts passed the parlour window. Miss Keeldar sauntered slowly by, her gait, her countenance, wearing that mixture of wistfulness and carelessness which, when quiescent, was the wonted cast of her look and character of her bearing. When animated, the carelessness quite vanished, the wistfulness became blent with a genial gaiety, seasoning the laugh, the smile, the glance, with a unique flavour of sentiment, so that mirth from her never resembled “the crackling of thorns under a pot.”

“What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you promised?” was her address to Caroline as she entered the room.

“I was not in the humour,” replied Miss Helstone, very truly.

Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye.

“No,” she said; “I see you are not in the humour for loving me. You are in one of your sunless, inclement moods, when one feels a fellow-creature’s presence is not welcome to you. You have such moods. Are you aware of it?”

“Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?”

“Yes. I am come to have my tea, and must have it before I go. I shall take the liberty, then, of removing my bonnet, without being asked.”

And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her hands behind her.

“A pretty expression you have in your countenance,” she went on, still gazing keenly, though not inimically — rather indeed pityingly — at Caroline. “Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking, wounded deer. Are you afraid Shirley will worry you if she discovers that you are hurt, and that you bleed?”

“I never do fear Shirley.”

“But sometimes you dislike her; often you avoid her. Shirley can feel when she is slighted and shunned. If you had not walked home in the company you did last night, you would have been a different girl to-day. What time did you reach the rectory?”

“By ten.”

“Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you, or Moore, who lingered so?”

“Shirley, you talk nonsense.”

“
He
talked nonsense — that I doubt not; or he looked it, which is a thousand times worse. I see the reflection of his eyes on your forehead at this moment. I feel disposed to call him out, if I could only get a trustworthy second. I feel desperately irritated. I felt so last night, and have felt it all day.”

“You don’t ask me why,” she proceeded, after a pause, “you little silent, over-modest thing; and you don’t deserve that I should pour out my secrets into your lap without an invitation. Upon my word, I could have found it in my heart to have dogged Moore yesterday evening with dire intent. I have pistols, and can use them.”

“Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot — me or Robert?”

“Neither, perhaps. Perhaps myself — more likely a bat or a tree-bough. He is a puppy, your cousin — a quiet, serious, sensible, judicious, ambitious puppy. I see him standing before me, talking his half-stern, half-gentle talk, bearing me down (as I am very conscious he does) with his fixity of purpose, etc.; and then — I have no patience with him!”

Miss Keeldar started off on a rapid walk through the room, repeating energetically that she had no patience with men in general, and with her tenant in particular.

“You are mistaken,” urged Caroline, in some anxiety. “Robert is no puppy or male flirt; I can vouch for that.”

“
You
vouch for it! Do you think I’ll take your word on the subject? There is no one’s testimony I would not credit sooner than yours. To advance Moore’s fortune you would cut off your right hand.”

“But not tell lies. And if I speak the truth, I must assure you that he was just civil to me last night — that was all.”

“I never asked what he was. I can guess. I saw him from the window take your hand in his long fingers, just as he went out at my gate.”

“That is nothing. I am not a stranger, you know. I am an old acquaintance, and his cousin.”

“I feel indignant, and that is the long and short of the matter,” responded Miss Keeldar. “All my comfort,” she added presently, “is broken up by his manœuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me. Without him we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again he crosses and obscures the disc I want always to see clear; ever and anon he renders me to you a mere bore and nuisance.”

“No, Shirley, no.”

“He does. You did not want my society this afternoon, and I feel it hard. You are naturally somewhat reserved, but I am a social personage, who cannot live alone. If we were but left unmolested, I have that regard for you that I could bear you in my presence for ever, and not for the fraction of a second do I ever wish to be rid of you. You cannot say as much respecting me.”

“Shirley, I can say anything you wish. Shirley, I like you.”

“You will wish me at Jericho to-morrow, Lina.”

“I shall not. I am every day growing more accustomed to — fonder of you. You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once; but you are so much better than common — you are so different to every-day young ladies — I esteem you, I value you; you are never a burden to me — never. Do you believe what I say?”

“Partly,” replied Miss Keeldar, smiling rather incredulously; “but you are a peculiar personage. Quiet as you look, there is both a force and a depth somewhere within not easily reached or appreciated. Then you certainly are not happy.”

“And unhappy people are rarely good. Is that what you mean?”

“Not at all. I mean rather that unhappy people are often preoccupied, and not in the mood for discoursing with companions of my nature. Moreover, there is a sort of unhappiness which not only depresses, but corrodes; and that, I fear, is your portion. Will pity do you any good, Lina? If it will, take some from Shirley; she offers largely, and warrants the article genuine.”

“Shirley, I never had a sister — you never had a sister; but it flashes on me at this moment how sisters feel towards each other — affection twined with their life, which no shocks of feeling can uproot, which little quarrels only trample an instant, that it may spring more freshly when the pressure is removed; affection that no passion can ultimately outrival, with which even love itself cannot do more than compete in force and truth. Love hurts us so, Shirley. It is so tormenting, so racking, and it burns away our strength with its flame. In affection is no pain and no fire, only sustenance and balm. I am supported and soothed when you — that is,
you only
— are near, Shirley. Do you believe me now?”

“I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me. We really are friends, then, Lina, in spite of the black eclipse?”

“We really are,” returned the other, drawing Shirley towards her, and making her sit down, “chance what may.”

“Come, then; we will talk of something else than the Troubler.” But at this moment the rector came in, and the “something else” of which Miss Keeldar was about to talk was not again alluded to till the moment of her departure. She then delayed a few minutes in the passage to say, “Caroline, I wish to tell you that I have a great weight on my mind; my conscience is quite uneasy as if I had committed, or was going to commit, a crime. It is not my
private
conscience, you must understand, but my landed-proprietor and lord-of-the-manor conscience. I have got into the clutch of an eagle with iron talons. I have fallen under a stern influence, which I scarcely approve, but cannot resist. Something will be done ere long, I fear, which it by no means pleases me to think of. To ease my mind, and to prevent harm as far as I can, I mean to enter on a series of good works. Don’t be surprised, therefore, if you see me all at once turn outrageously charitable. I have no idea how to begin, but you must give me some advice. We will talk more on the subject to-morrow; and just ask that excellent person, Miss Ainley, to step up to Fieldhead. I have some notion of putting myself under her tuition. Won’t she have a precious pupil? Drop a hint to her, Lina, that, though a well-meaning, I am rather a neglected character, and then she will feel less scandalized at my ignorance about clothing societies and such things.”

On the morrow Caroline found Shirley sitting gravely at her desk, with an account-book, a bundle of banknotes, and a well-filled purse before her. She was looking mighty serious, but a little puzzled. She said she had been “casting an eye” over the weekly expenditure in housekeeping at the hall, trying to find out where she could retrench; that she had also just given audience to Mrs. Gill, the cook, and had sent that person away with a notion that her (Shirley’s) brain was certainly crazed. “I have lectured her on the duty of being careful,” said she, “in a way quite new to her. So eloquent was I on the text of economy that I surprised myself; for, you see, it is altogether a fresh idea. I never thought, much less spoke, on the subject till lately. But it is all theory; for when I came to the practical part I could retrench nothing. I had not firmness to take off a single pound of butter, or to prosecute to any clear result an inquest into the destiny of either dripping, lard, bread, cold meat, or other kitchen perquisite whatever. I know we never get up illuminations at Fieldhead, but I could not ask the meaning of sundry quite unaccountable pounds of candles. We do not wash for the parish, yet I viewed in silence items of soap and bleaching-powder calculated to satisfy the solicitude of the most anxious inquirer after our position in reference to those articles. Carnivorous I am not, nor is Mrs. Pryor, nor is Mrs. Gill herself, yet I only hemmed and opened my eyes a little wide when I saw butchers’ bills whose figures seemed to prove that fact — falsehood, I mean. Caroline, you may laugh at me, but you can’t change me. I am a poltroon on certain points; I feel it. There is a base alloy of moral cowardice in my composition. I blushed and hung my head before Mrs. Gill, when she ought to have been faltering confessions to me. I found it impossible to get up the spirit even to hint, much less to prove, to her that she was a cheat. I have no calm dignity, no true courage about me.”

“Shirley, what fit of self-injustice is this? My uncle, who is not given to speak well of women, says there are not ten thousand men in England as genuinely fearless as you.”

“I am fearless, physically; I am never nervous about danger. I was not startled from self-possession when Mr. Wynne’s great red bull rose with a bellow before my face, as I was crossing the cowslip lea alone, stooped his begrimed, sullen head, and made a run at me; but I was afraid of seeing Mrs. Gill brought to shame and confusion of face. You have twice — ten times — my strength of mind on certain subjects, Caroline. You, whom no persuasion can induce to pass a bull, however quiet he looks, would have firmly shown my housekeeper she had done wrong; then you would have gently and wisely admonished her; and at last, I dare say, provided she had seemed penitent, you would have very sweetly forgiven her. Of this conduct I am incapable. However, in spite of exaggerated imposition, I still find we live within our means. I have money in hand, and I really must do some good with it. The Briarfield poor are badly off; they must be helped. What ought I to do, think you, Lina? Had I not better distribute the cash at once?”