“Mr. Hall” — it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from their walk — “there is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room and there are proper people seated round it. You may join that society and share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here, and do as we do.”
“I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself to be led by the nose,” returned Mr. Hall, who presently entered, accompanied by Louis Moore. That gentleman’s eye fell on his desk, pillaged.
“Burglars!” said he. — “Henry, you merit the ferule.”
“Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it,” was alleged, with more attention to effect than truth.
“Traitor and false witness!” cried both the girls. “We never laid hands on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!”
“Exactly so,” said Moore, with his rare smile. “And what have you ferreted out, in your ‘spirit of laudable inquiry’?”
He perceived the inner drawer open.
“This is empty,” said he. “Who has taken — — “
“Here, here!” Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little packet to its place. He shut it up; he locked it in with a small key attached to his watch-guard; he restored the other papers to order, closed the repository, and sat down without further remark.
“I thought you would have scolded much more, sir,” said Henry. “The girls deserve reprimand.”
“I leave them to their own consciences.”
“It accuses them of crimes intended as well as perpetrated, sir. If I had not been here, they would have treated your portfolio as they have done your desk; but I told them it was padlocked.”
“And will you have lunch with us?” here interposed Shirley, addressing Moore, and desirous, as it seemed, to turn the conversation.
“Certainly, if I may.”
“You will be restricted to new milk and Yorkshire oatcake.”
“Va — pour le lait frais!” said Louis. “But for your oatcake!” and he made a grimace.
“He cannot eat it,” said Henry. “He thinks it is like bran, raised with sour yeast.”
“Come, then; by special dispensation we will allow him a few cracknels, but nothing less homely.”
The hostess rang the bell and gave her frugal orders, which were presently executed. She herself measured out the milk, and distributed the bread round the cosy circle now enclosing the bright little schoolroom fire. She then took the post of toaster-general; and kneeling on the rug, fork in hand, fulfilled her office with dexterity. Mr. Hall, who relished any homely innovation on ordinary usages, and to whom the husky oatcake was from custom suave as manna, seemed in his best spirits. He talked and laughed gleefully — now with Caroline, whom he had fixed by his side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered in the quietest tone the wittiest things. Gravely spoken sentences, marked by unexpected turns and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell easily from his lips. He proved himself to be — what Mr. Hall had said he was — excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his humour, but still more at his entire self-possession. Nobody there present seemed to impose on him a sensation of unpleasant restraint. Nobody seemed a bore — a check — a chill to him; and yet there was the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet.
But Shirley was cool and lofty no longer, at least not at this moment. She appeared unconscious of the humility of her present position; or if conscious, it was only to taste a charm in its lowliness. It did not revolt her pride that the group to whom she voluntarily officiated as handmaid should include her cousin’s tutor. It did not scare her that while she handed the bread and milk to the rest, she had to offer it to him also; and Moore took his portion from her hand as calmly as if he had been her equal.
“You are overheated now,” he said, when she had retained the fork for some time; “let me relieve you.”
And he took it from her with a sort of quiet authority, to which she submitted passively, neither resisting him nor thanking him.
“I should like to see your pictures, Louis,” said Caroline, when the sumptuous luncheon was discussed. — “Would not you, Mr. Hall?”
“To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I have cut him as an artist. I had enough of him in that capacity in Cumberland and Westmoreland. Many a wetting we got amongst the mountains because he would persist in sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of rain-clouds, gathering mists, fitful sunbeams, and what not.”
“Here is the portfolio,” said Henry, bringing it in one hand and leaning on his crutch with the other.
Louis took it, but he still sat as if he wanted another to speak. It seemed as if he would not open it unless the proud Shirley deigned to show herself interested in the exhibition.
“He makes us wait to whet our curiosity,” she said.
“You understand opening it,” observed Louis, giving her the key. “You spoiled the lock for me once; try now.”
He held it. She opened it, and, monopolizing the contents, had the first view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed the treat — if treat it were — in silence, without a single comment. Moore stood behind her chair and looked over her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were still gazing, he left his post and paced through the room.
A carriage was heard in the lane — the gate-bell rang. Shirley started.
“There are callers,” she said, “and I shall be summoned to the room. A pretty figure — as they say — I am to receive company. I and Henry have been in the garden gathering fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under my own vine and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the Indian chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at ease weaving mats, and stringing beads, and peacefully flattening her pickaninny’s head in an unmolested corner of her wigwam. I’ll emigrate to the western woods.”
Louis Moore laughed.
“To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and after wedlock to devote yourself to the tender task of digging your lord’s maize-field while he smokes his pipe or drinks fire-water.”
Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom door unclosed, admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage stood aghast when he saw the group around the fire.
“I thought you alone, Miss Keeldar,” he said. “I find quite a party.”
And evidently from his shocked, scandalized air, had he not recognized in one of the party a clergyman, he would have delivered an extempore philippic on the extraordinary habits of his niece: respect for the cloth arrested him.
“I merely wished to announce,” he proceeded coldly, “that the family from De Walden Hall, Mr., Mrs., the Misses, and Mr. Sam Wynne, are in the drawing-room.” And he bowed and withdrew.
“The family from De Walden Hall! Couldn’t be a worse set,” murmured Shirley.
She sat still, looking a little contumacious, and very much indisposed to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her dark hair had been more than once dishevelled by the morning wind that day. Her attire was a light, neatly fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she had worn in the garden was still draped in a careless fold round her. Indolent, wilful, picturesque, and singularly pretty was her aspect — prettier than usual, as if some soft inward emotion, stirred who knows how, had given new bloom and expression to her features.
“Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go,” whispered Caroline.
“I wonder why?”
She lifted her eyes, and saw in the glass over the fireplace both Mr. Hall and Louis Moore gazing at her gravely.
“If,” she said, with a yielding smile — “if a majority of the present company maintain that the De Walden Hall people have claims on my civility, I will subdue my inclinations to my duty. Let those who think I ought to go hold up their hands.”
Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous vote against
her.
“You must go,” said Mr. Hall, “and behave courteously too. You owe many duties to society. It is not permitted you to please only yourself.”
Louis Moore assented with a low “Hear, hear!”
Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave to her attire a less artistic and more domestic grace, and Shirley was put out of the room, protesting still, by a pouting lip, against her dismissal.
“There is a curious charm about her,” observed Mr. Hall, when she was gone. “And now,” he added, “I must away; for Sweeting is off to see his mother, and there are two funerals.”
“Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time,” said Moore, sitting down to his desk.
“A curious charm!” repeated the pupil, when he and his master were left alone. “True. Is she not a kind of white witch?” he asked.
“Of whom are you speaking, sir?”
“Of my cousin Shirley.”
“No irrelevant questions; study in silence.”
Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly — sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was a rare one with his tutor; but when it came he had an awe of it. He obeyed.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING.
Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that never had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic.
Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiously desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match, give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her for ever.
The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreed on the meaning of the words “suitable” and “proper.” She never yet had accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most important step of her life, she would consent to accept it.
The trial soon came.
Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.
“Decidedly suitable! most proper!” pronounced Mr. Sympson. “A fine unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. It must be done!”
He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed her consent.
It was withheld.
“No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.”
“I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you.”
She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
“And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?”
“He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections, equal respectability.”
“Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to love him.”
“Please to state your objections.”
“He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him.”
“Miss Keeldar, you shock me!”
“That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar.”
“The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on your part.”
“I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!”
“Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?”
“I deny your right to claim an answer to that question.”
“May I ask if you expect some man of title — some peer of the realm — to demand your hand?”
“I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it.”
“Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy.”
“Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it.”
“I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a mésalliance!”
“Our name! Am I called Sympson?”
“God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be trifled with!”
“What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?”
“Take care! take care!” warning her with voice and hand that trembled alike.
“Why? What shadow of power have you over me? Why should I fear you?”
“Take care, madam!”
“Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved to esteem — to admire — to love.”
“Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!”
“To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not.”
“And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?”
“On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable.”
“On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or — or — — “
“Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?”
“Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist.”
“For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro’ grammar school!”
“Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?” He lifted hands and eyes.
“Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne.”
“To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?”
“Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you could not compel me to this step. I will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject.”
Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar — or her fortune — had by this time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne’s, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.
Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family tranquillized.
The village of Nunnely has been alluded to — its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory — an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and what is more, it had its man of title — its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession — its proudest and most prized — had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate.
During Miss Keeldar’s stay at the fashionable watering-place of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They enco
untered him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the place. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending — too simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not condescend to their society; he seemed glad of it.
With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cement an acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt, and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because she found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power to amuse him.
One slight drawback there was — where is the friendship without it? — Sir Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry — sonnets, stanzas, ballads. Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading and reciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessed more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, the inspiration more fire. At any rate, she always winced when he recurred to the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert the conversation into another channel.
He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest of his ballads. He would lead her away to sequestered rustic seats, whence the rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and when he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them, and the scented shade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rose behind them, he would pull out his last batch of sonnets, and read them in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though they might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley’s downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt heartily mortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman.
Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic worship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics. He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the hoary church and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his tenantry about him in his ancestral halls.
Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Page 104
