“I am tired. May I leave my work now, cousin?”
“You may, since it grows too dark to see to do it well. Fold it up; put it carefully in your bag; then step into the kitchen and desire Sarah to bring in the goûter, or tea, as you call it.”
“But it has not yet struck six. He may still come.”
“He will not, I tell you. I can calculate his movements. I understand my brother.”
Suspense is irksome, disappointment bitter. All the world has, some time or other, felt that. Caroline, obedient to orders, passed into the kitchen. Sarah was making a dress for herself at the table.
“You are to bring in coffee,” said the young lady in a spiritless tone; and then she leaned her arm and head against the kitchen mantelpiece, and hung listlessly over the fire.
“How low you seem, miss! But it’s all because your cousin keeps you so close to work. It’s a shame!”
“Nothing of the kind, Sarah,” was the brief reply.
“Oh! but I know it is. You’re fit to cry just this minute, for nothing else but because you’ve sat still the whole day. It would make a kitten dull to be mewed up so.”
“Sarah, does your master often come home early from market when it is wet?”
“Never, hardly; but just to-day, for some reason, he has made a difference.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is come. I am certain I saw Murgatroyd lead his horse into the yard by the back-way, when I went to get some water at the pump five minutes since. He was in the counting-house with Joe Scott, I believe.”
“You are mistaken.”
“What should I be mistaken for? I know his horse surely?”
“But you did not see himself?”
“I heard him speak, though. He was saying something to Joe Scott about having settled all concerning ways and means, and that there would be a new set of frames in the mill before another week passed, and that this time he would get four soldiers from Stilbro’ barracks to guard the wagon.”
“Sarah, are you making a gown?”
“Yes. Is it a handsome one?”
“Beautiful! Get the coffee ready. I’ll finish cutting out that sleeve for you, and I’ll give you some trimming for it. I have some narrow satin ribbon of a colour that will just match it.”
“You’re very kind, miss.”
“Be quick; there’s a good girl. But first put your master’s shoes on the hearth: he will take his boots off when he comes in. I hear him; he is coming.”
“Miss, you are cutting the stuff wrong.”
“So I am; but it is only a snip. There is no harm done.”
The kitchen door opened; Mr. Moore entered, very wet and cold. Caroline half turned from her dressmaking occupation, but renewed it for a moment, as if to gain a minute’s time for some purpose. Bent over the dress, her face was hidden; there was an attempt to settle her features and veil their expression, which failed. When she at last met Mr. Moore, her countenance beamed.
“We had ceased to expect you. They asserted you would not come,” she said.
“But I promised to return soon. You expected me, I suppose?”
“No, Robert; I dared not when it rained so fast. And you are wet and chilled. Change everything. If you took cold, I should — we should blame ourselves in some measure.”
“I am not wet through: my riding-coat is waterproof. Dry shoes are all I require. There — the fire is pleasant after facing the cold wind and rain for a few miles.”
He stood on the kitchen hearth; Caroline stood beside him. Mr. Moore, while enjoying the genial glow, kept his eyes directed towards the glittering brasses on the shelf above. Chancing for an instant to look down, his glance rested on an uplifted face, flushed, smiling, happy, shaded with silky curls, lit with fine eyes. Sarah was gone into the parlour with the tray; a lecture from her mistress detained her there. Moore placed his hand a moment on his young cousin’s shoulder, stooped, and left a kiss on her forehead.
“Oh!” said she, as if the action had unsealed her lips, “I was miserable when I thought you would not come. I am almost too happy now. Are you happy, Robert? Do you like to come home?”
“I think I do — to-night, at least.”
“Are you certain you are not fretting about your frames, and your business, and the war?”
“Not just now.”
“Are you positive you don’t feel Hollow’s Cottage too small for you, and narrow, and dismal?”
“At this moment, no.”
“Can you affirm that you are not bitter at heart because rich and great people forget you?”
“No more questions. You are mistaken if you think I am anxious to curry favour with rich and great people. I only want means — a position — a career.”
“Which your own talent and goodness shall win you. You were made to be great; you shall be great.”
“I wonder now, if you spoke honestly out of your heart, what recipe you would give me for acquiring this same greatness; but I know it — better than you know it yourself. Would it be efficacious? Would it work? Yes — poverty, misery, bankruptcy. Oh, life is not what you think it, Lina!”
“But you are what I think you.”
“I am not.”
“You are better, then?”
“Far worse.”
“No; far better. I know you are good.”
“How do you know it?”
“You look so, and I feel you are so.”
“Where do you feel it?”
“In my heart.”
“Ah! You judge me with your heart, Lina: you should judge me with your head.”
“I do; and then I am quite proud of you. Robert, you cannot tell all my thoughts about you.”
Mr. Moore’s dark face mustered colour; his lips smiled, and yet were compressed; his eyes laughed, and yet he resolutely knit his brow.
“Think meanly of me, Lina,” said he. “Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea. I make no pretension to be better than my fellows.”
“If you did, I should not esteem you so much. It is because you are modest that I have such confidence in your merit.”
“Are you flattering me?” he demanded, turning sharply upon her, and searching her face with an eye of acute penetration.
“No,” she said softly, laughing at his sudden quickness. She seemed to think it unnecessary to proffer any eager disavowal of the charge.
“You don’t care whether I think you flatter me or not?”
“No.”
“You are so secure of your own intentions?”
“I suppose so.”
“What are they, Caroline?”
“Only to ease my mind by expressing for once part of what I think, and then to make you better satisfied with yourself.”
“By assuring me that my kinswoman is my sincere friend?”
“Just so. I am your sincere friend, Robert.”
“And I am — what chance and change shall make me, Lina.”
“Not my enemy, however?”
The answer was cut short by Sarah and her mistress entering the kitchen together in some commotion. They had been improving the time which Mr. Moore and Miss Helstone had spent in dialogue by a short dispute on the subject of “café au lait,” which Sarah said was the queerest mess she ever saw, and a waste of God’s good gifts, as it was “the nature of coffee to be boiled in water,” and which mademoiselle affirmed to be “un breuvage royal,” a thousand times too good for the mean person who objected to it.
The former occupants of the kitchen now withdrew into the parlour. Before Hortense followed them thither, Caroline had only time again to question, “Not my enemy, Robert?” And Moore, Quaker-like, had replied with another query, “Could I be?” And then, seating himself at the table, had settled Caroline at his side.
Caroline scarcely heard mademoiselle’s explosion of wrath when she rejoined them; the long declamation about the “conduite indigne de cette méchante créature” sounde
d in her ear as confusedly as the agitated rattling of the china. Robert laughed a little at it, in very subdued sort, and then, politely and calmly entreating his sister to be tranquil, assured her that if it would yield her any satisfaction, she should have her choice of an attendant amongst all the girls in his mill. Only he feared they would scarcely suit her, as they were most of them, he was informed, completely ignorant of household work; and pert and self-willed as Sarah was, she was, perhaps, no worse than the majority of the women of her class.
Mademoiselle admitted the truth of this conjecture: according to her, “ces paysannes anglaises étaient tout insupportables.” What would she not give for some “bonne cuisinière anversoise,” with the high cap, short petticoat, and decent sabots proper to her class — something better, indeed, than an insolent coquette in a flounced gown, and absolutely without cap! (For Sarah, it appears, did not partake the opinion of St. Paul that “it is a shame for a woman to go with her head uncovered;” but, holding rather a contrary doctrine, resolutely refused to imprison in linen or muslin the plentiful tresses of her yellow hair, which it was her wont to fasten up smartly with a comb behind, and on Sundays to wear curled in front.)
“Shall I try and get you an Antwerp girl?” asked Mr. Moore, who, stern in public, was on the whole very kind in private.
“Merci du cadeau!” was the answer. “An Antwerp girl would not stay here ten days, sneered at as she would be by all the young coquines in your factory;” then softening, “You are very good, dear brother — excuse my petulance — but truly my domestic trials are severe, yet they are probably my destiny; for I recollect that our revered mother experienced similar sufferings, though she had the choice of all the best servants in Antwerp. Domestics are in all countries a spoiled and unruly set.”
Mr. Moore had also certain reminiscences about the trials of his revered mother. A good mother she had been to him, and he honoured her memory; but he recollected that she kept a hot kitchen of it in Antwerp, just as his faithful sister did here in England. Thus, therefore, he let the subject drop, and when the coffee-service was removed, proceeded to console Hortense by fetching her music-book and guitar; and having arranged the ribbon of the instrument round her neck with a quiet fraternal kindness he knew to be all-powerful in soothing her most ruffled moods, he asked her to give him some of their mother’s favourite songs.
Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes; family union elevates. Hortense, pleased with her brother, and grateful to him, looked, as she touched her guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her everyday fretful look was gone for a moment, and was replaced by a “sourire plein de bonté.” She sang the songs he asked for, with feeling; they reminded her of a parent to whom she had been truly attached; they reminded her of her young days. She observed, too, that Caroline listened with naïve interest; this augmented her good-humour; and the exclamation at the close of the song, “I wish I could sing and play like Hortense!” achieved the business, and rendered her charming for the evening.
It is true a little lecture to Caroline followed, on the vanity of wishing and the duty of trying. “As Rome,” it was suggested, “had not been built in a day, so neither had Mademoiselle Gérard Moore’s education been completed in a week, or by merely wishing to be clever. It was effort that had accomplished that great work. She was ever remarkable for her perseverance, for her industry. Her masters had remarked that it was as delightful as it was uncommon to find so much talent united with so much solidity, and so on.” Once on the theme of her own merits, mademoiselle was fluent.
Cradled at last in blissful self-complacency, she took her knitting, and sat down tranquil. Drawn curtains, a clear fire, a softly-shining lamp, gave now to the little parlour its best, its evening charm. It is probable that the three there present felt this charm. They all looked happy.
“What shall we do now, Caroline?” asked Mr. Moore, returning to his seat beside his cousin.
“What shall we do, Robert?” repeated she playfully. “You decide.”
“Not play at chess?”
“No.”
“Nor draughts, nor backgammon?”
“No, no; we both hate silent games that only keep one’s hands employed, don’t we?”
“I believe we do. Then shall we talk scandal?”
“About whom? Are we sufficiently interested in anybody to take a pleasure in pulling their character to pieces?”
“A question that comes to the point. For my part, unamiable as it sounds, I must say no.”
“And I too. But it is strange, though we want no third — fourth, I mean (she hastily and with contrition glanced at Hortense), living person among us — so selfish we are in our happiness — though we don’t want to think of the present existing world, it would be pleasant to go back to the past, to hear people that have slept for generations in graves that are perhaps no longer graves now, but gardens and fields, speak to us and tell us their thoughts, and impart their ideas.”
“Who shall be the speaker? What language shall he utter? French?”
“Your French forefathers don’t speak so sweetly, nor so solemnly, nor so impressively as your English ancestors, Robert. To-night you shall be entirely English. You shall read an English book.”
“An old English book?”
“Yes, an old English book — one that you like; and I will choose a part of it that is toned quite in harmony with something in you. It shall waken your nature, fill your mind with music; it shall pass like a skilful hand over your heart, and make its strings sound. Your heart is a lyre, Robert; but the lot of your life has not been a minstrel to sweep it, and it is often silent. Let glorious William come near and touch it. You will see how he will draw the English power and melody out of its chords.”
“I must read Shakespeare?”
“You must have his spirit before you; you must hear his voice with your mind’s ear; you must take some of his soul into yours.”
“With a view to making me better? Is it to operate like a sermon?”
“It is to stir you, to give you new sensations. It is to make you feel your life strongly — not only your virtues, but your vicious, perverse points.”
“Dieu! que dit-elle?” cried Hortense, who hitherto had been counting stitches in her knitting, and had not much attended to what was said, but whose ear these two strong words caught with a tweak.
“Never mind her, sister; let her talk. Now just let her say anything she pleases to-night. She likes to come down hard upon your brother sometimes. It amuses me, so let her alone.”
Caroline, who, mounted on a chair, had been rummaging the bookcase, returned with a book.
“Here’s Shakespeare,” she said, “and there’s ‘Coriolanus.’ Now, read, and discover by the feelings the reading will give you at once how low and how high you are.”
“Come, then, sit near me, and correct when I mispronounce.”
“I am to be the teacher then, and you my pupil?”
“Ainsi, soit-il!”
“And Shakespeare is our science, since we are going to study?”
“It appears so.”
“And you are not going to be French, and sceptical, and sneering? You are not going to think it a sign of wisdom to refuse to admire?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you do, Robert, I’ll take Shakespeare away; and I’ll shrivel up within myself, and put on my bonnet and go home.”
“Sit down. Here I begin.”
“One minute, if you please, brother,” interrupted mademoiselle. “When the gentleman of a family reads, the ladies should always sew. — Caroline, dear child, take your embroidery. You may get three sprigs done to-night.”
Caroline looked dismayed. “I can’t see by lamp-light; my eyes are tired, and I can’t do two things well at once. If I sew, I cannot listen; if I listen, I cannot sew.”
“Fi, donc! Quel enfantillage!” began Hortense. Mr. Moore, as usual, suavely interposed.
“Permit her to neglect the embr
oidery for this evening. I wish her whole attention to be fixed on my accent; and to ensure this, she must follow the reading with her eyes — she must look at the book.”
He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the back of Caroline’s chair, and thus began to read.
The very first scene in “Coriolanus” came with smart relish to his intellectual palate, and still as he read he warmed. He delivered the haughty speech of Caius Marcius to the starving citizens with unction; he did not say he thought his irrational pride right, but he seemed to feel it so. Caroline looked up at him with a singular smile.
“There’s a vicious point hit already,” she said. “You sympathize with that proud patrician who does not sympathize with his famished fellow-men, and insults them. There, go on.” He proceeded. The warlike portions did not rouse him much; he said all that was out of date, or should be; the spirit displayed was barbarous; yet the encounter single-handed between Marcius and Tullus Aufidius he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot to criticise; it was evident he appreciated the power, the truth of each portion; and, stepping out of the narrow line of private prejudices, began to revel in the large picture of human nature, to feel the reality stamped upon the characters who were speaking from that page before him.
He did not read the comic scenes well; and Caroline, taking the book out of his hand, read these parts for him. From her he seemed to enjoy them, and indeed she gave them with a spirit no one could have expected of her, with a pithy expression with which she seemed gifted on the spot, and for that brief moment only. It may be remarked, in passing, that the general character of her conversation that evening, whether serious or sprightly, grave or gay, was as of something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful — when once gone, no more to be reproduced as it had been than the glancing ray of the meteor, than the tints of the dew-gem, than the colour or form of the sunset cloud, than the fleeting and glittering ripple varying the flow of a rivulet.
Coriolanus in glory, Coriolanus in disaster, Coriolanus banished, followed like giant shades one after the other. Before the vision of the banished man Moore’s spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the hearth of Aufidius’s hall, facing the image of greatness fallen, but greater than ever in that low estate. He saw “the grim appearance,” the dark face “bearing command in it,” “the noble vessel with its tackle torn.” With the revenge of Caius Marcius, Moore perfectly sympathized; he was not scandalized by it; and again Caroline whispered, “There I see another glimpse of brotherhood in error.”
Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Page 65
