Shirley

by Charlotte Bronte

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION--REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCEIN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS DUTIES.

  Martin, having known the taste of excitement, wanted a second draught;having felt the dignity of power, he loathed to relinquish it. MissHelstone--that girl he had always called ugly, and whose face was nowperpetually before his eyes, by day and by night, in dark and insunshine--had once come within his sphere. It fretted him to think thevisit might never be repeated.

  Though a schoolboy he was no ordinary schoolboy; he was destined to growup an original. At a few years' later date he took great pains to pareand polish himself down to the pattern of the rest of the world, but henever succeeded; an unique stamp marked him always. He now sat idle athis desk in the grammar school, casting about in his mind for the meansof adding another chapter to his commenced romance. He did not yet knowhow many commenced life-romances are doomed never to get beyond thefirst, or at most the second chapter. His Saturday half-holiday he spentin the wood with his book of fairy legends, and that other unwrittenbook of his imagination.

  Martin harboured an irreligious reluctance to see the approach ofSunday. His father and mother, while disclaiming community with theEstablishment, failed not duly, once on the sacred day, to fill theirlarge pew in Briarfield Church with the whole of their blooming family.Theoretically, Mr. Yorke placed all sects and churches on a level. Mrs.Yorke awarded the palm to Moravians and Quakers, on account of thatcrown of humility by these worthies worn. Neither of them were everknown, however, to set foot in a conventicle.

  Martin, I say, disliked Sunday, because the morning service was long,and the sermon usually little to his taste. This Saturday afternoon,however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in thecoming day.

  It proved a day of deep snow--so deep that Mrs. Yorke during breakfastannounced her conviction that the children, both boys and girls, wouldbe better at home; and her decision that, instead of going to church,they should sit silent for two hours in the back parlour, while Rose andMartin alternately read a succession of sermons--John Wesley's"Sermons." John Wesley, being a reformer and an agitator, had a placeboth in her own and her husband's favour.

  "Rose will do as she pleases," said Martin, not looking up from the bookwhich, according to his custom then and in after-life, he was studyingover his bread and milk.

  "Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too," observed the mother.

  "I am going to church."

  So her son replied, with the ineffable quietude of a true Yorke, whoknows his will and means to have it, and who, if pushed to the wall,will let himself be crushed to death, provided no way of escape can befound, but will never capitulate.

  "It is not fit weather," said the father.

  No answer. The youth read studiously; he slowly broke his bread andsipped his milk.

  "Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more to obey," saidMrs. Yorke.

  "I suppose I am influenced by pure perverseness?"

  "Yes, you are."

  "Mother, _I am not_."

  "By what, then, are you influenced?"

  "By a complication of motives, the intricacies of which I should as soonthink of explaining to you as I should of turning myself inside out toexhibit the internal machinery of my frame."

  "Hear Martin! hear him!" cried Mr. Yorke. "I must see and have this ladof mine brought up to the bar. Nature meant him to live by his tongue.Hesther, your third son must certainly be a lawyer; he has thestock-in-trade--brass, self-conceit, and words--words--words."

  "Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin, with intensegravity, serenity, phlegm. The boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice,which in his "dour moods" rose scarcely above a lady's whisper. The moreinflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. Herang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes.

  "But, Martin," urged his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man couldhardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boyrose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I wouldby no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by allmeans. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides thedepth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warmfireside."

  Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberatelywent out.

  "My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced. "How womenmiss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammeringaway at insensate stone."

  He reached church early.

  "Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest),or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss herafter all, it will vex me; but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she_ought_ to come, and if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and featuresshe _will_ come. She will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I amhere for the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a wordrespecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavourof what I think the essence of life--a taste of existence, with thespirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnationwhat champagne is to flat porter."

  He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one oldwoman. As the chimes subsided and the single bell tolled slowly, anotherand another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took a humblestation in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, andthe poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain theirconstancy to dear old mother church. This wild morning not one affluentfamily attended, not one carriage party appeared--all the lined andcushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged thegray-haired elders and feeble paupers.

  "I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin, shortly andsavagely, to himself. The rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr.Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.

  The bells ceased--the reading-desk was filled--the doors wereclosed--the service commenced. Void stood the rectory pew--she was notthere. Martin scorned her.

  "Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug! Like all othergirls--weakly, selfish, shallow!"

  Such was Martin's liturgy.

  "She is not like our picture. Her eyes are not large and expressive; hernose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm Ithought it had, which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in myworst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a _girl_, inshort."

  So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from his knees at theproper place, and was still in an exemplary attitude of devotion when,the litany over, the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did notcontribute to soothe him. He started up red (for he was as sensitive toridicule as any girl). To make the matter worse, the church door hadreopened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundredlittle feet trotted in. It was the Sunday scholars. According toBriarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept wherethere was a warm stove, and only led into church just before thecommunion and sermon.

  The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the boys and theyounger girls were all arranged--when the organ was swelling high, andthe choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual song--atall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Theirteacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. TheFrench-gray cloak and small beaver bonnet were known to Martin; it wasthe very costume his eyes had ached to catch. Miss Helstone had notsuffered the storm to prove an impediment. After all, she was come tochurch. Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn book; atany rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes.

  Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her again beforethe sermon was over. She had never once looked his way; at least he hadnot been so lucky as to encounter a glance.

  "If," he said--"if she takes no notice of me, if she shows I am not inher thoughts, I shall have a worse, a meaner opinion of her than ever.Most despicable
would it be to come for the sake of those sheep-facedSunday scholars, and not for my sake or that long skeleton Moore's."

  The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced; thecongregation dispersed. She had not been near him.

  Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet wassharp and the east wind cold.

  His nearest way lay through some fields. It was a dangerous, because anuntrodden way. He did not care; he would take it. Near the second stilerose a clump of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, anumbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast; behind itfluttered a French-gray cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep,encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realmsof Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gainedthe stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened aconference which, for his own part, he was willing to prolongindefinitely.

  "I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor."

  "I was not sure whether you would come this way, Martin, but I thought Iwould run the chance. There is no such thing as getting a quiet wordspoken in the church or churchyard."

  "Will you agree?--make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother, and put me in herskirts?"

  "As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?"

  "You call her 'mamma,' don't you?"

  "She _is_ my mamma."

  "Not possible--or so inefficient, so careless a mamma; I should make afive times better one. You _may_ laugh. I have no objection to see youlaugh. Your teeth--I hate ugly teeth; but yours are as pretty as a pearlnecklace, and a necklace of which the pearls are very fair, even, andwell matched too."

  "Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid compliments?"

  "They have not done till this generation; but I feel as if it were myvocation to turn out a new variety of the Yorke species. I am rathertired of my own ancestors. We have traditions going back for fourages--tales of Hiram, which was the son of Hiram, which was the son ofSamuel, which was the son of John, which was the son of ZerubbabelYorke. All, from Zerubbabel down to the last Hiram, were such as you seemy father. Before that there was a Godfrey. We have his picture; ithangs in Moore's bedroom; it is like me. Of his character we knownothing; but I am sure it was different to his descendants. He has long,curling dark hair; he is carefully and cavalierly dressed. Having saidthat he is like me, I need not add that he is handsome."

  "You are not handsome, Martin."

  "No; but wait awhile--just let me take my time. I mean to begin fromthis day to cultivate, to polish, and we shall see."

  "You are a very strange, a very unaccountable boy, Martin. But don'timagine you ever will be handsome; you cannot."

  "I mean to try. But we were talking about Mrs. Pryor. She must be themost unnatural mamma in existence, coolly to let her daughter come outin this weather. Mine was in such a rage because I would go to church;she was fit to fling the kitchen brush after me."

  "Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I am afraid I wasobstinate. I _would_ go."

  "To see me?"

  "Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared the snow wouldhinder you from coming. You don't know how pleased I was to see you allby yourself in the pew."

  "_I_ came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good example. And soyou were obstinate, were you? I should like to see you obstinate, Ishould. Wouldn't I have you in good discipline if I owned you? Let metake the umbrella."

  "I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready."

  "And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roastgoose to-day, with apple-pie and rice-pudding. I always contrive to knowthe bill of fare. Well, I like these things uncommonly; but I'll makethe sacrifice, if you will."

  "We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary cooking onthe Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if Ifailed to appear."

  "So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my father sending out theoverlooker and five of the dyers, to look in six directions for the bodyof his prodigal son in the snow; and my mother repenting her of hermany misdeeds towards me, now I am gone."

  "Martin, how is Mr. Moore?"

  "_That_ is what you came for, just to say that word."

  "Come, tell me quickly."

  "Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever--mewed up, kept insolitary confinement. They mean to make either an idiot or a maniac ofhim, and take out a commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you sawhow thin he was."

  "You were very good the other day, Martin."

  "What day? I am always good--a model."

  "When will you be so good again?"

  "I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me--I am nocat's-paw."

  "But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a necessary thing."

  "How you encroach! Remember, I managed the matter of my own free willbefore."

  "And you will again."

  "I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble. I like my ease."

  "Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him."

  "I dare say" (coolly).

  "It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends."

  "Tell her so."

  "His own relations."

  "Come and blow her up."

  "You know that would advance nothing. Well, I shall stick to my point.See him I will. If you won't help me, I'll manage without help."

  "Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence."

  "I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking.Good-morning."

  Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against thewind.

  "She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like towatch, and mark how she will work her way without help. If the stormwere not of snow, but of fire--such as came refreshingly down on thecities of the plain--she would go through it to procure five minutes'speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant morning.The disappointments got time on; the fears and fits of anger only madethat short discourse pleasanter, when it came at last. She expected tocoax me at once. She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall comeagain, again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in apassion--to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go--whatshe will do and dare--to get her will. It seems strange and new to findone human being thinking so much about another as she thinks aboutMoore. But it is time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour. Won't Iwalk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or I shall get thelargest cut of the apple-pie to-day."