Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes

by Bronte Sisters

  “I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you.”

  “Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she will care for me, in her way. These hands will be the gentle ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to which, of myself, I am a stranger.”

  Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered.

  “What flutters my dove?” asked Moore, as she nestled to and then uneasily shrank from him.

  “Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave her?”

  “Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and ‘mamma’ have discussed it.”

  “Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I will consider if it is possible to consent. But I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot break her heart, even for your sake.”

  “She was faithful when I was false — was she not? I never came near your sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly.”

  “What must I do? Anything but leave her.”

  “At my wish you never shall leave her.”

  “She may live very near us?”

  “With us — only she will have her own rooms and servant. For this she stipulates herself.”

  “You know she has an income, that, with her habits, makes her quite independent?”

  “She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody else.”

  “She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip.”

  “I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification of reserve and discretion, she were something quite opposite, I should not fear her.”

  “Yet she will be your mother-in-law?” The speaker gave an arch little nod. Moore smiled.

  “Louis and I are not of the order of men who fear their mothers-in-law, Cary. Our foes never have been, nor will be, those of our own household. I doubt not my mother-in-law will make much of me.”

  “That she will — in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative; and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her displeased; it is only a manner she has. Be sure to let me interpret for her whenever she puzzles you; always believe my account of the matter, Robert.”

  “Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I will suit — on ne peut mieux. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely susceptible — in our French sense of the word — and not, perhaps, always reasonable in her requirements; yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her feelings or had a serious quarrel with her in my life.”

  “No; you are most generously considerate, indeed, most tenderly indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a gentleman all through, Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a gentleman as at your own fireside.”

  “A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased my Caroline should view me in this light.”

  “Mamma just thinks of you as I do.”

  “Not quite, I hope?”

  “She does not want to marry you — don’t be vain; but she said to me the other day, ‘My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with an air of sincerity.’”

  “‘Mamma’ is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of the sterner sex?”

  “She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has her exceptions whom she admires — Louis and Mr. Hall, and, of late, yourself. She did not like you once; I knew that, because she would never speak of you. But, Robert — — “

  “Well, what now? What is the new thought?”

  “You have not seen my uncle yet?”

  “I have. ‘Mamma’ called him into the room. He consents conditionally. If I prove that I can keep a wife, I may have her; and I can keep her better than he thinks — better than I choose to boast.”

  “If you get rich you will do good with your money, Robert?”

  “I will do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of my own, which you and I will talk about on our own hearth one day. I have seen the necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now foretell. This war must ere long draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for some years to come. There may be a brief misunderstanding between England and America, but that will not last. What would you think if, one day — perhaps ere another ten years elapse — Louis and I divide Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain of power and property. He will not bury his talents. He is a benevolent fellow, and has, besides, an intellect of his own of no trifling calibre. His mind is slow but strong. It must work. It may work deliberately, but it will work well. He will be made magistrate of the district — Shirley says he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely to obtain for him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the pâte generally approved, bon comme le pain — daily bread for the most fastidious, good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor, wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and oddities, her dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness for him. She will one day see him as universally beloved as even she could wish. He will also be universally esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on — too much so. His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. Ere long both will be in inconvenient request. He will have to impose restrictions. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will add to his and Shirley’s income. I can double the value of their mill property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and rows of cottage-gardens — — “

  “Robert! And root up the copse?”

  “The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The beautiful wild ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm, broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my mill, Caroline — my mill shall fill its present yard.”

  “Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro’ smoke atmosphere.”

  “I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley of Briarfield.”

  “I like the beck a thousand times better.”

  “I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out into farms.”

  “Stilbro’ Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?”

  “Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to Hollow’s Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete them a portion till the first pay-day.”

  She smiled up in his face.

  “Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such collections as you will get! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and mistress, and the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a quarter.”

  She mutely offered a kiss — an offer taken unfair advantage of, to the extortion of about a hundred kisses.

  “Extravagant day-dreams,” said Moore, with a sigh and smile, “yet perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs. Moore, I shall take you in.”

  It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead te
nantry dine together; the Hollow’s Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church — Louis Gérard Moore, Esq., late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar, Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow’s Mill, to Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of Briarfield.

  The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone, Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen, Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.

  I suppose Robert Moore’s prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled. The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer’s day-dreams embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes — the cinder-black highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old housekeeper when I came home where I had been.

  “Ay,” said she, “this world has queer changes. I can remember the old mill being built — the very first it was in all the district; and then I can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses [companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays.”

  “What was the Hollow like then, Martha?”

  “Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead, within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on this countryside (though they’ve been heard within these forty years). A lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees. It is altered now.”

  The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!

  THE END.

  VILLETTE

  This novel was published in 1853. After an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance. The novel is celebrated not so much for its plot as its acute tracing of Lucy’s psychology, particularly Brontë’s use of Gothic doubling to represent externally what her protagonist is suffering internally.

  The original title page

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I.

  CHAPTER II.

  CHAPTER III.

  CHAPTER IV.

  CHAPTER V.

  CHAPTER VI.

  CHAPTER VII.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  CHAPTER IX.

  CHAPTER X.

  CHAPTER XI.

  CHAPTER XII.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  CHAPTER XV.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  CHAPTER XX.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  CHAPTER XXX.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  CHAPTER XXXIX.

  CHAPTER XL.

  CHAPTER XLI.

  CHAPTER XLII.

  CHAPTER I.

  BRETTON.

  My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband’s family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace — Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not.

  When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide — so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement — these things pleased me well.

  One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman.

  She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous pity that she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes were blue — though, even in boyhood, very piercing — and the colour of his long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as the sun shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the lines of his mother’s features, however; also her good teeth, her stature (or the promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-grown), and, what was better, her health without flaw, and her spirits of that tone and equality which are better than a fortune to the possessor.

  In the autumn of the year — — I was staying at Bretton; my godmother having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad to change scene and society.

  Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother’s side; not with tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with “green trees on each bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round.” The charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had still held aloof.

  One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication: to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud seemed to pass.

  The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in its shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.

  “Of what are these things the signs and tokens?” I asked. The answer was obvious. “A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other visitors.”

  On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton’s. This little girl, it was added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere long subjoined, the loss was not
so great as might at first appear. Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union proved, that separation at last ensued — separation by mutual consent, not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded but that some over-severity on his part — some deficiency in patience and indulgence — had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over this idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men insisted on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs. Bretton had offered to take charge of his little girl. “And I hope,” added my godmother in conclusion, “the child will not be like her mamma; as silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was weak enough to marry. For,” said she, “Mr. Home is a sensible man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, and lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments — a thing his butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed” confessed my godmother, “I should not have liked it myself.”

  In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed French and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France, of whom more than one wrote de before his name, and called himself noble.

  That same evening at nine o’clock, a servant was despatched to meet the coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I sat alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton being absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the country. My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I sewed. It was a wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind sounded angry and restless.