“Indeed Sir I was only about to rise to ring the bell as I am sure you must need refreshment and probably Miss Allen, my husband’s cousin, who will soon arrive from her walk will join you — I believe she did not expect you here though — any more than myself.”
“Madam — mark me — Do you not think it strange in a person to invite another to dinner and set before him a service of plate but forget all the viands — Then will it not be strange in yourself to welcome me hither and refuse the only pleasure that could make me feel pleased? I see you are about to retire but as my time in this house must be short why try to make that time uncomfortable? Why try to afflict with midnight frost mental leaves that only want for due development an hour or so of morning dew and sunny balm? Do not allow anxiety to spoil your eyes as I see it is doing whenever I notice you to look at the carriage road or listen to the door bell — You have had havoc enough played with your marble cheeks ere now without seeking for any further bleaching and though I heed little who enters here I must if you look so sad much longer be vividly reminded of the different looks with which eyes now closed for ever expected and watched for my own returns. Oh it is true that a soul too lovely for the tempests of this wretched life — too blessed to have a long abidence here may still not die but slumber — and forgetting its own decaying body wake after a few years of repose in the shelter of a corporeal shrine as congenial and as fair. Do not leave the room — I was only permitting a hasty temper to indulge in expectations which can never be fulfilled and I will not be frowned upon if I own that THY womanly gentleness has tamed a heart which sorrow was making sadly too wild.
“I think I see Miss Allen coming up the walk and so you will soon have more cheerful company than any I can give.”
“I do not desire cheerfulness” said Mr Percy rising and pacing rapidly through the apartment — “I want some thing of more value — some thing which will not leave me with a joke or a smile — I want — Why before Miss Allen enters I want Thy hand in proof that I have not angered Thee, or at least in acknowledgement that with thee reproof of an offence may be mingled with pardon for the offender — Come, as my hostess thy hand must be placed in mine — or I have no alternative save to ride off directly or open out a budget of quarrels — God bless the fingers which can by one touch give a whole days life to me — ”
So Mr Percy spoke with some haste and much earnestness as he clasped Mrs Thurstons hand while she was passing — and standing over her with a look of mingled love and sorrow besought by such a glance pardon from her brow and sympathy from her eyes — but well for her equanimity of temper and in full accordance with the gentlemans calculations it happened that ere Mrs Thurston could say a sentence or retire a step the door was opened to admit Miss Louisa Allen on her arrival from her solitary mornings walk.
Miss Allen looked highly flushed and breathed very rapidly but that might have been owing to her hurried return — She did not speak to Mrs Thurston — express her astonishment in a few syllables at Mr Percys desertion of his companions and then threw aside with some impatience the incumbrances of bonnet and mantle.
Mr Percy looked at her with an expression of risibility on his countenance and told her that of the two she seemed more like one who had followed the sports of that morning than himself, for he felt as cool as a cucumber while her cheeks were in a July glow. However only replying that if he felt like a cucumber she felt like a water melon Miss Allen went to the window and Percys laughing eye could mark the entering sunlight glisten on a cheek wet with a few tears not of sensibility to the lovely wilds before her but of that most reckless of all feelings a womans bad temper. He turned from that face to another expressing an equally true picture of a woman but as it was now again bent over the embroidery frame how different seemed the effect of the view & the parks of Windsor and the silver Thames beheld from Richmond hill could not be less like the great Glen beheld from Ben Nevis than was the sweet resignation which compassionated anothers ruffled temper from the rebellious look which nursed and lived on revenge for all causes of disquiet that might thwart its will.
“How pleasant” he remarked seating himself on the sopha and talking at Miss Allen if not to her. “How much milder the feelings produced by a retirement into a primitive district from the false fitful fever of a life in town — Had I been now in the Metropolis and were it now before the prorogation I should have been obliged to dress and paint my soul in all manner of false colours to meet and mix with souls which could no more mingle with mine than oil could with water — To pass compliments with women whose dead corpses would no more affect my real feelings than their living charms — to keep terms of friendship with men who would cause me much more pleasure by a communication with them through my boot toes instead of the tips of my fingers — Here now I find nature in its unsophisticated state — Hills that laugh to scorn the ploughshare a park that absolutely gives a ‘guffaw’ to Sir Henry Stewart of Allanston — a room that exersises[sic] as much decorum in its admission of sunlight from Heaven as did the court under whose auspices it was built in the encouragement of sunlight from eyes — Aye and I suspect more for Queen Bess could see a trim leg among her nobles at a score of yards distance and Mrs Thurston cannot see her needle at an inch from her eye. Miss Allen alone has telescopic power of vision for she looks earnestly for planets or constellations through a heaven wherein I can only see hot autumnal vapours and a single mackarel cloud.”
“Perhaps” answered the lady with a rather unsuccessful attempt at cheerfulness — “My cloud may afford a more substantial prospect than words which disguise or don’t know their meaning.”
“Perhaps a flitch of Bacon — nay a glass of flummery may be more substantial than “Angels ever bright and fair.” The first is substance the last sound — but not the less worthy of remembrance when coupled with the alliance of a thrilling voice and jet black eyes.”
The reference to Handels song evidently aided in temporarily soothing the little vixen like person at the window who seemed to have a dream of W — — — Cathedral and of an Organist pushed from his seat to make way for the touch of fingers inspired as much by a syrens voice as by the organs roll, and of one who beheld as he touched the Keys not the portly and comely presence of Mr George Frederic Handel but the sylph like figure of one whom she could at any hour behold in the glass with raven locks as Symmons has it
“like midnight loosed at noon”
So she turned more animatedly from her long look at Boulshill and for the first time since her entrance into the room vouchsafed a smile — Perhaps Percy noticed that it was rather one of triumph at momentary success over a fancied rival than at disinterested love of his praise, so he changed his varying features till their powers seemed wreaked on the beads that were gradually forming the roses and tulips of Mrs Thurstons work, and then Miss Allen rousing from silencd irritability saying —
“You may court the sunshine but as the day grows so sultry I will seek shade — I don’t think I shall walk — love — before luncheon,” She departed leaving behind her the embarrasment produced by the departure of one much displeased from a company wherein no one wished to cause displeasure — and yet I fear the absence of so bright a planet did not give a more midnight hue to the sky which in Mr Percys eyes did sem to contain some scarce explored or erratic star while in those of his hostess it held — if her sad cheek could tell anything — no light whatever — save the ignus fatuus of decay which lights up the enamel remnants of time past or the half despair and half hope which through present frosty skies of winter affords a fitful Aurora borealis to mock the sunshine of Youths summer in the Greenland heavens of time to come. Mrs Thurston looked as if desirous of following her lady guest but a scowling eye pursued her through a meandering search among sideboards for skeins of silk wherein every tack was doorwards till she could feign no longer but placidly returned to her seat and reassumed the hostesses benignness
“Now then” remarked Percy “Summer will have its thunderstorms and noe has
just past by with but one peal — I ought to be thankful; for judging from my fair foes eyes a commmon flash of lightning would be nothing to the effect educible from their volcanic fire. Why is it that slender frames enclose such daring spirits while a creature like myself of six feet two can only baa like a new cast lamb?”
The very handsome mouth of Mr Percy as he uttered the last sentence curled into a positively ugly sneer and moved for once a smile on the rather too pallid lips of the lady who listened to him — She replied without looking up from her work
“Fits of temper among theose of our sex seem rational compared with those among yours — If we feel aggrieved past endurance we can at least leave the room whereas you seem disposed to stay and covertly vex persons whom the rules of society forbid you openly to insult”
“And do you apply so severe a censure as your words would imply, to me? Do you think I have returned from an aimless and tiresome journey so soon to spend the time which should have been occupied in killing Moorgame in plaguing women? Two there are of your sex to whom I have spoken this morning and one I am sure I have no wish to irritate or displease — the other now seated opposite to me must retire into her own heart to answer the enquiry does she dislike me more or less than the dozens or scores of country boors that alone have awaked her silver voice since the day she left Euston Square Station? — She knows God has not blighted me with the thunderbolt of personal deformity or the Typhoon of repulsive manners — She must feel that what bad passions and tempers I have are caged up or rioting in a wildernesses far apart from her sylvan shades — That I have no wish to exert my superior bodily strength save to preserve her from harm or my more impetuous temper save to infuse vigour into her mildness — That I forget the black daemons of melancholy partly because her aspect scares them and partly because my anxiety for her comfort subdues them — That indeed I am here just now because God’s goodness has given to me for a short time a daily drop of ‘elixir vitae’ in my cup of restless misery — A sweet remembrance — my girl — of thoughts which must be innocent because they lie wholly in the grave and are only called forth again in this room as among the snows of December you would open the phial which held the essence of Julys rose. You must not rise I — once more repeat — for luncheon is I suppose nearly ready and neither I or yourself — I mean yourself or I would partake of it with more relish from knowing that anger or insult or false modesty or conventional manners had separated our tables or our hearts.Look at this Old Hall Maria Thurston — is it a hypocrite? Look at that mirror — does it tell lies? Look at what that mirror reflects — Is it an image qualified to shine only in a London crowd of fashionables or over the benches of a Methodist conventicle? You KNOW you are a lady and that a man if worthy of the name can neither dislike or even feel indifferent to you. You know that you are a neglected lady and that I know you are so. You know too that I would lose lifes blood to drive injury from you and sacrifice its comforts to give you pleasure and if you know so much my girl you likewise know that I am not returned hither to change for you this balmy twelfth of August into a weeping twelfth of April, but to indulge a selfish desire for happiness in conversation with you and to exersise a most unselfish feeling in contributing to the ease of the gentle heart which beats within that corset and cheering the hours of a lady who too often I fear has to spend them alone. Cannot I have some stores of knowledge from which to furnish an hours innocent amusement when while her bosom has only brooded dovelike over home scenes my wandering wings have expanded like those of the stormy peteril over lifes ocean through every clime and climate — every grief and joy.”
“Yes Sir I know well your mind has among its stores of wealth much that is valuable and that any one might feel happy in your society if that mind chose to let others partake of its stores”
“Let others partake! No not all others But oh thine own dear self should and gladly too! What is that obscurely seen but most overwhelming incubus which forbids me — weighs me down when I dare dream of a pleasure so great as this afternoon spent apart from the world and seated by thy side — yet making what I have known of the world and indeed my whole store of thought, subservient to thy pleasure who while nursed in quiet and comfort might thus explore the ocean of humanity without being buffeted by its storms?”
“You have from indulgence been accustomed Sir to feel too impatient when your days do not pass in unclouded sunshine — many pleasures one might hope for on awaking in the morning but so few are realized during the day that I accustom myself to recieve each visitation of joy as a boon — not as a right or even a thing to be expected and this feeling constantly cultivated allows me to go through my duties and bear any mortifications with such calmness as makes mind and body able to drink the cup of sorrow without a wry face and feel no intoxication from the cup of joy”
“Then is it Gods will and according to a just disposal of events that I should now return to disliked or uncongenial companions and leave you hugging your chain and like an Indian devotee proud to show that you can take your nap on a bed of ten penny nails or like a pugilist that you can smile after a sledge hammer hit on your teeth? Answer me — would it be well — would it accord with your ideas of justice should two persons resolve to do all they could to prevent mutual friendship and produce mutual pain?”
“No Sir — I believe our object ought to be the promotion of friendship and alleviation of pain.”
“To both ones own self and to all others?”
“Yes — as I would not reccommend suicide most certainly to ones self — but even before oneself to others because if every one in this world thought first of his neighbour and last of himself we should eventually be sure of happiness. Do not you see that for one grain of pleasure sacrificed every point of the compass would return you a hundred fold?”
“And You — or myself are to don the pasteboard helmet of the Spanish hero and sally forth with the idea of sacrificing our happiness to the good of our fellow creatures, are we? No, no. It is enough that I wish to live for one being beside myself and not for one thousand millions. I wish by word and deed to comfort one whom I love and I only ask as a reward that she should not wholly dislike me.”
Mr Percy had now entered upon one of his usual fit of restless walking through an apartment which always attacked him when much excited and while obliged to hide feelings which inborn nature and constant indulgence through life impelled him to display. He would not so much as look at the fair face bending over a mechanical employment lest it should not precisely tally with his notion of the emotions he fancied it ought to feel and lest he should forget what was due to the gentleman under whose roof he was staying and by one wild outbreak of passion throw himself open to three alternatives of misery. The ruin of a Lady whom his very soul did really love just then — the risk of a bullet through his bosom from the pistol of the dark bilious faced person under whose roof he abode, and, worst of all, denial of Love — of sympathy — of sorrow for himself and dearly purchased knowledge of coldness and dislike from an answer to the half dozen sentences which were tingling on his tongue and to which the consciousness of their importance alone prevented him giving utterance. He dreaded every movement made by Mrs Thurston lest it should announce her departure from the room. He felt jealous of every change on her mild thoughtful face lest it should herald some stern avowal of feelings if toward himself, still severed by duty and that last idea so gained upon his mind that he broke the silence of the room by one abrupt question.
“Now Maria Thurston — I must be here for days or weeks and I must not during that time be laid on St Lawrences gridiron — So I ask you once and for all — will you — by preserving your thoroughly womanlike character and by allowing me to rest upon its feminine sweetness my masculine roughness — let my stay here be passable to my mind or will you shun me and make me conscious of the truth of that hideous saying that women care not for any man but live for the gratification of a vanity whose shrine is their looking glass or the hecatomb of real manly hearts t
hat have burst under their whims and which will send up a fragrance when consuming on the altar of that Nova Zembla deity a bloodless woman proud to keep a real man in pain.”
“But Sir you have been married yourself and I should not intrude on your feelings perhaps by asking you whether or not your own lady assumed the semblance of a Nova Zembla deity Did she only care for you as the means whereby she could gratify her vanity — did she never feel toward her husband as if pain to him would be double pain to herself?”
“Maria Thurston — You distress me — I have lost the sole charm of a fevered and broken life and I would willingly and innocently fill up the dreadful chasm that lies between the grave of her whom I did possess and the goal whose laurels must sooth the worry of my forthcoming life. What if that goal be yourself? Why should you shrink from intercommunion with myself whose every sinew would rouse to save your little finger from harm — Who besides me would make his life a secondary consideration to yours? Who besides me would foresake mans idol pleasure to worship what is too often womans idol pain — Who would, though you call him indulged, bear the pains of a prison to see you enjoy the pleasures of a palace.
You know what I mean Maria — You know what I have lost and what I would gain. Tell me — do you think that one who has for years been accustomed to repose a worried and wearied head on a warm and devoted bosom — now that the bosom is given over to corruption and that he is forced to feel jealous of worms — do you think that he no longer wants such a repose and while clouds are gathering and years closing round him he feels no wish for a ressurection of his buried joy? When I leave Darkwall and return to Percy Hall shall I not feel a sad vacancy when my lonely evenings after dinner are spent in studies where a weary head misses sadly the little hand that used to stroke its hair or the soft lap that used to ease its aching — where my little girl alone will give all that childhood can of affection but where I shall leave among northern clouds and heather the polar star of love — Oh do not start Maria Thurston for you too will think of me when I am gone — You will know too well what place you fill now — What place I would have you to fill to feel indifferent to Alexander Percy. Hours which did fate permit it — might be spent in a recalled paradise by my fireside will perforce contrast themselves with hours of neglect present to your heart and senses here. I am sure that ere the winds of winter blow the sleet against these windows you will have dropped some tears over the doom which denies to Maria Thurston the place of Mary Percy!”
Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Page 368
