Shirley

“Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?”

“How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone being announced, I was prepared to see my child.”

“It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed.”

“You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me.”

“Why? Were you disappointed?”

“What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were like, I could have dropped.”

“Mamma, why?”

“I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall never know me.”

“But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the thought of an introduction to strangers – that was all.”

“I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content.”

“You puzzle me.”

“I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant – a toil-worn governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking down before her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels. I followed them home; and when into their hands I had given without reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a transfiguration on the domestic hearth – to see the white mask lifted, the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down – O God, I have suffered!”

She sank on the pillow.

“I have suffered! None saw – none knew. There was no sympathy, no redemption, no redress!”

“Take comfort, mother. It is over now.”

“It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with terror – I was troubled. Through great tribulation He brought me through to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment; He has cast it out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But, Caroline…”

Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.

“Mother!”

“I charge you, when you next look on your father’s monument, to respect the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All you derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave, between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account. Meddle not. God is the arbiter. This world’s laws never came near us – never! They were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me – impotent as idiot babblings to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now; the grave lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church. To his dust I say this night, what I have never said before, ‘James, slumber peacefully! See! your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black account with my own hand! James, your child atones. This living likeness of you – this thing with your perfect features – this one good gift you gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me “mother.” Husband, rest forgiven!’”

“Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa’s spirit hear us? Is he comforted to know that we still love him?”

“I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child; I said nothing of love! On the threshold of eternity, should he be there to see me enter, will I maintain that.”

“O mother, you must have suffered!”

“O child, the human heart can suffer! It can hold more tears than the ocean holds waters. We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness.”

“Mother, forget.”

“Forget!” she said, with the strangest spectre of a laugh. “The North Pole will rush to the south, and the headlands of Europe be locked into the bays of Australia ere I forget.”

“Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!”

And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew calmer. She resumed those tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The soft hair whose locks were loosened she rearranged, the damp brow she refreshed with a cool, fragrant essence.

“Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle to come into this room by-and-by. I want to hear him say that I am your daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don’t leave me for one minute tonight.”

“O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will always be ‘mamma’ prefacing a mandate – softly spoken, though, from you, thank God! Well,” she added, under her breath, “he spoke softly too, once, like a flute breathing tenderness; and then, when the world was not by to listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood – sounds to inspire insanity.”

“It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let me be troublesome. Check me if I encroach.”

“You must not depend on me to check you; you must keep guard over yourself. I have little moral courage; the want of it is my bane. It is that which has made me an unnatural parent – which has kept me apart from my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband’s death left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to be snatched prematurely from their embrace.”

“How, mamma?”

“I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears. Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic – a heavy, blunt-featured, commonplace child – I should have hastened to claim you; but there, under the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic flower—‘little lady’ was written on every trait. I had too recently crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman – escaped galled, crushed, paralyzed, dying – to dare to encounter his still finer and most fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with dismay; her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle as the concomitants of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of education to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted my own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle’s hands. Matthewson Helstone I knew, if an austere, was an upright man. He and all the world thought hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be misjudged.”

“Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?”

“It was a name in my mother’s family. I adopted it that I might live unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life; I could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered of forcing me to return to bondage. It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of sustaining life; but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace! How safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no lurid reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How serene was solitude, when I feared not the irruption of violence and vice!”

“But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How did it happen that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not recognized?”

“I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was very different to what I am now – slender, almost as slender as my daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed; my hair, my style of dress – everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white muslin, with bare arms, bracelets and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round Grecian curls above my forehead?”

“You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard the front door open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs, and let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not dreaming or delirious.”

The rector, of his own accord, was mounting the stairs, and Mrs. Pryor summoned him to his niece’s apartment.

“She’s not worse, I hope?” he inquired hastily.

“I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she seems stronger.”

“Good!” said he, brushing quickly into the room. – “Ha, Cary! how do? Did you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself.”

“I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has made me quite alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you in.”

The respected ecclesiastic looked pleased, and yet embarrassed. He was willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes, since it was her whim to wish it; but what means to employ for her entertainment he knew not. He hemmed – he fidgeted.

“You’ll be up in a trice,” he observed, by way of saying something. “The little weakness will soon pass off; and then you must drink port wine – a pipe, if you can – and eat game and oysters. I’ll get them for you, if they are to be had anywhere. Bless me! we’ll make you as strong as Samson before we’re done with you.”

“Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the bed-foot?”

“Good God!” he ejaculated. “She’s not wandering, is she, ma’am?”

Mrs. Pryor smiled.

“I am wandering in a pleasant world,” said Caroline, in a soft, happy voice, “and I want you to tell me whether it is real or visionary. What lady is that? Give her a name, uncle.”

“We must have Dr. Rile again, ma’am; or better still, MacTurk. He’s less of a humbug. Thomas must saddle the pony and go for him.”