Shirley

“Yours! Ay, the whole generation of women in Briarfield seem to have made an idol of that priest. I wonder why; he is bald, sand-blind, gray-haired.”

“Fanny will be here to fetch me before you have solved the riddle, if you don’t make haste.”

“I’ll guess no more – I am tired; and then I don’t care. Miss Keeldar may marry le grand Turc for me.”

“Must I whisper?”

“That you must, and quickly. Here comes Hortense; come near, a little nearer, my own Lina. I care for the whisper more than the words.”

She whispered. Robert gave a start, a flash of the eye, a brief laugh. Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed behind, with information that Fanny was come. The hour of converse was over.

Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered sentences. He was waiting at the foot of the staircase as Caroline descended after putting on her shawl.

“Must I call Shirley a noble creature now?” he asked.

“If you wish to speak the truth, certainly.”

“Must I forgive her?”

“Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the wrong, or were you?”

“Must I at length love her downright, Cary?”

Caroline looked keenly up, and made a movement towards him, something between the loving and the petulant.

“Only give the word, and I’ll try to obey you.”

“Indeed, you must not love her; the bare idea is perverse.”

“But then she is handsome, peculiarly handsome. Hers is a beauty that grows on you. You think her but graceful when you first see her; you discover her to be beautiful when you have known her for a year.”

“It is not you who are to say these things. Now, Robert, be good.”

“O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of beauty to woo me, I could not meet her advances. There is no heart which I can call mine in this breast.”

“So much the better; you are a great deal safer without. Good night.”

“Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant when I most want you to stay?”

“Because you most wish to retain when you are most certain to lose.”

“Listen; one other word. Take care of your own heart – do you hear me?”

“There is no danger.”

“I am not convinced of that. The Platonic parson, for instance.”

“Who – Malone?”

“Cyril Hall. I owe more than one twinge of jealousy to that quarter.”

“As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann. She showed me the other day a plant you had given her. – Fanny, I am ready.”

Chapter XXXVI

Written In the Schoolroom

Louis Moore’s doubts respecting the immediate evacuation of Fieldhead by Mr. Sympson turned out to be perfectly well founded. The very next day after the grand quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely a sort of reconciliation was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who could never find it in her heart to be or to seem inhospitable (except in the single instance of Mr. Donne), begged the whole party to stay a little longer. She begged in such earnest it was evident she wished it for some reason. They took her at her word. Indeed, the uncle could not bring himself to leave her quite unwatched – at full liberty to marry Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should be able (Mr. Sympson piously prayed this might never be the case) to reassert his supposed pretensions to her hand. They all stayed.

In his first rage against all the house of Moore, Mr. Sympson had so conducted himself towards Mr. Louis that that gentleman – patient of labour or suffering, but intolerant of coarse insolence – had promptly resigned his post, and could now be induced to resume and retain it only till such time as the family should quit Yorkshire. Mrs. Sympson’s entreaties prevailed with him thus far; his own attachment to his pupil constituted an additional motive for concession; and probably he had a third motive, stronger than either of the other two. Probably he would have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now.

Things went on for some time pretty smoothly. Miss Keeldar’s health was re-established; her spirits resumed their flow. Moore had found means to relieve her from every nervous apprehension; and, indeed, from the moment of giving him her confidence, every fear seemed to have taken wing. Her heart became as lightsome, her manner as careless, as those of a little child, that, thoughtless of its own life or death, trusts all responsibility to its parents. He and William Farren – through whose medium he made inquiries concerning the state of Phoebe – agreed in asserting that the dog was not mad, that it was only ill-usage which had driven her from home; for it was proved that her master was in the frequent habit of chastising her violently. Their assertion might or might not be true. The groom and gamekeeper affirmed to the contrary – both asserting that, if hers was not a clear case of hydrophobia, there was no such disease. But to this evidence Louis Moore turned an incredulous ear. He reported to Shirley only what was encouraging. She believed him; and, right or wrong, it is certain that in her case the bite proved innocuous.

November passed; December came. The Sympsons were now really departing. It was incumbent on them to be at home by Christmas. Their packages were preparing; they were to leave in a few days. One winter evening, during the last week of their stay, Louis Moore again took out his little blank book, and discoursed with it as follows.

“She is lovelier than ever. Since that little cloud was dispelled all the temporary waste and wanness have vanished. It was marvellous to see how soon the magical energy of youth raised her elastic and revived her blooming.

“After breakfast this morning, when I had seen her, and listened to her, and, so to speak, felt her, in every sentient atom of my frame, I passed from her sunny presence into the chill drawing room. Taking up a little gilt volume, I found it to contain a selection of lyrics. I read a poem or two; whether the spell was in me or in the verse I know not, but my heart filled genially, my pulse rose. I glowed, notwithstanding the frost air. I, too, am young as yet. Though she said she never considered me young, I am barely thirty. There are moments when life, for no other reason than my own youth, beams with sweet hues upon me.

“It was time to go to the schoolroom. I went. That same schoolroom is rather pleasant in a morning. The sun then shines through the low lattice; the books are in order; there are no papers strewn about; the fire is clear and clean; no cinders have fallen, no ashes accumulated. I found Henry there, and he had brought with him Miss Keeldar. They were together.

“I said she was lovelier than ever. She is. A fine rose, not deep but delicate, opens on her cheek. Her eye, always dark, clear, and speaking, utters now a language I cannot render; it is the utterance, seen not heard, through which angels must have communed when there was ‘silence in heaven.’ Her hair was always dusk as night and fine as silk, her neck was always fair, flexible, polished; but both have now a new charm. The tresses are soft as shadow, the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess grace. Once I only saw her beauty, now I feel it.

“Henry was repeating his lesson to her before bringing it to me. One of her hands was occupied with the book; he held the other. That boy gets more than his share of privileges; he dares caress and is caressed. What indulgence and compassion she shows him! Too much. If this went on, Henry in a few years, when his soul was formed, would offer it on her altar, as I have offered mine.

“I saw her eyelid flitter when I came in, but she did not look up; now she hardly ever gives me a glance. She seems to grow silent too; to me she rarely speaks, and when I am present, she says little to others. In my gloomy moments I attribute this change to indifference, aversion, what not? In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning. I say, were I her equal, I could find in this shyness coyness, and in that coyness love. As it is, dare I look for it? What could I do with it if found?

“This morning I dared at least contrive an hour’s communion for her and me; I dared not only wish but will an interview with her. I dared summon solitude to guard us. Very decidedly I called Henry to the door. Without hesitation I said, ‘Go where you will, my boy; but, till I call you, return not here.’

“Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal. That boy is young, but a thinker; his meditative eye shines on me strangely sometimes. He half feels what links me to Shirley; he half guesses that there is a dearer delight in the reserve with which I am treated than in all the endearments he is allowed. The young, lame, half-grown lion would growl at me now and then, because I have tamed his lioness and am her keeper, did not the habit of discipline and the instinct of affection hold him subdued. Go, Henry; you must learn to take your share of the bitter of life with all of Adam’s race that have gone before or will come after you. Your destiny can be no exception to the common lot; be grateful that your love is overlooked thus early, before it can claim any affinity to passion. An hour’s fret, a pang of envy, suffice to express what you feel. Jealousy hot as the sun above the line, rage destructive as the tropic storm, the clime of your sensations ignores – as yet.

“I took my usual seat at the desk, quite in my usual way. I am blessed in that power to cover all inward ebullition with outward calm. No one who looks at my slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my heart, and engulfing thought and wrecking prudence. Pleasant is it to have the gift to proceed peacefully and powerfully in your course without alarming by one eccentric movement. It was not my present intention to utter one word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of the fire in which I wasted. Presumptuous I never have been; presumptuous I never will be. Rather than even seem selfish and interested, I would resolutely rise, gird my loins, part and leave her, and seek, on the other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the rock the salt tide daily washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near scrutiny – to read a line in the page of her heart. Before I left I determined to know what I was leaving.

“I had some quills to make into pens. Most men’s hands would have trembled when their hearts were so stirred; mine went to work steadily, and my voice, when I called it into exercise, was firm.

“‘This day week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.’

“‘Yes: I rather think my uncle’s intention to go is a settled one now.’

“‘He leaves you dissatisfied.’

“‘He is not pleased with me.’

“‘He departs as he came – no better for his journey. This is mortifying.’

“‘I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all inclination to lay new ones.’

“‘In his way Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done or intended to do he believed to be for the best.’