Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (137 page)

Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. He listens. No — yes. Once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues forth.

She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin never met a lady in this wood before — nor any female, save, now and then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now recognizes her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of that veil.

She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil, reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, “Are you one of Mr. Yorke’s sons?”

No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.

“I am,” he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder, superciliously, what would come next.

“You are Martin, I think?” was the observation that followed.

It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence — very artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the youth’s nature. It stilled him like a note of music.

Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like his father, he hated ceremony. It was acceptable to hear a lady address him as “Martin,” and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity. The slight tone of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered perfectly in place.

“I am Martin,” he said.

“Are your father and mother well?” (it was lucky she did not say
papa
and
mamma
; that would have undone all); “and Rose and Jessie?”

“I suppose so.”

“My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?”

“Oh yes.”

Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan. The half-smile was responded to by the lady, who could guess in what sort of odour Hortense was likely to be held by the young Yorkes.

“Does your mother like her?”

“They suit so well about the servants they can’t help liking each other.”

“It is cold to-night.”

“Why are you out so late?”

“I lost my way in this wood.”

Now, indeed, Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh of scorn.

“Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains! You deserve never more to find it.”

“I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing now. You might inform against me if you chose, Martin, and have me fined. It is your father’s wood.”

“I should think I knew that. But since you are so simple as to lose your way, I will guide you out.”

“You need not. I have got into the track now. I shall be right. Martin” (a little quickly), “how is Mr. Moore?”

Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that it might be amusing to make an experiment.

“Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung overboard!”

She put her veil aside. She looked into his eyes, and said, “To die!”

“To die. All along of the women, my mother and the rest. They did something about his bandages that finished everything. He would have got better but for them. I am sure they should be arrested, cribbed, tried, and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least.”

The questioner, perhaps, did nor hear this judgment. She stood motionless. In two minutes, without another word, she moved forwards; no good-night, no further inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin had calculated on. He expected something dramatic and demonstrative. It was hardly worth while to frighten the girl if she would not entertain him in return. He called, “Miss Helstone!”

She did not hear or turn. He hastened after and overtook her.

“Come; are you uneasy about what I said?”

“You know nothing about death, Martin; you are too young for me to talk to concerning such a thing.”

“Did you believe me? It’s all flummery! Moore eats like three men. They are always making sago or tapioca or something good for him. I never go into the kitchen but there is a saucepan on the fire, cooking him some dainty. I think I will play the old soldier, and be fed on the fat of the land like him.”

“Martin! Martin!” Here her voice trembled, and she stopped.

“It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have almost killed me.”

Again she stopped. She leaned against a tree, trembling, shuddering, and as pale as death.

Martin contemplated her with inexpressible curiosity. In one sense it was, as he would have expressed it, “nuts” to him to see this. It told him so much, and he was beginning to have a great relish for discovering secrets. In another sense it reminded him of what he had once felt when he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Unable to find anything very appropriate to
say
in order to comfort her, he began to cast about in his mind what he could
do
. He smiled. The lad’s smile gave wondrous transparency to his physiognomy.

“Eureka!” he cried. “I’ll set all straight by-and-by. You are better now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward,” he urged.

Not reflecting that it would be more difficult for Miss Helstone than for himself to climb a wall or penetrate a hedge, he piloted her by a short cut which led to no gate. The consequence was he had to help her over some formidable obstacles, and while he railed at her for helplessness, he perfectly liked to feel himself of use.

“Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, and on your word of honour, that Mr. Moore is better.”

“How very much you think of that Moore!”

“No — but — many of his friends may ask me, and I wish to be able to give an authentic answer.”

“You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You may tell them that he takes mutton chops for dinner, and the best of arrowroot for supper. I intercepted a basin myself one night on its way upstairs, and ate half of it.”

“And who waits on him, Martin? who nurses him?”

“Nurses him? The great baby! Why, a woman as round and big as our largest water-butt — a rough, hard-favoured old girl. I make no doubt she leads him a rich life. Nobody else is let near him. He is chiefly in the dark. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in that chamber. I listen at the wall sometimes when I am in bed, and I think I hear her thumping him. You should see her fist. She could hold half a dozen hands like yours in her one palm. After all, notwithstanding the chops and jellies he gets, I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is my private opinion that she eats most of what goes up on the tray to Mr. Moore. I wish she may not be starving him.”

Profound silence and meditation on Caroline’s part, and a sly watchfulness on Martin’s.

“You never see him, I suppose, Martin?”

“I? No. I don’t care to see him, for my own part.”

Silence again.

“Did not you come to our house once with Mrs. Pryor, about five weeks since, to ask after him?” again inquired Martin.

“Yes.”

“I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?”

“We
did
wish it. We entreated it; but your mother declined.”

“Ay! she declined. I heard it all. She treated you as it is her pleasure to treat visitors now and then. She behaved to you rudely and harshly.”

“She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations, and it is natural we should take an interest in Mr. Moore. But here we must part; we are at your father’s gate.”

“Very well, what of that? I shall walk home with you.”

“They will miss you, and wonder where you are.”

“Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose.”

Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had furnished him with an adventure. It was better than muffins and toast.

He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised to see Mr. Moore, in spite of the dragon who guarded his chamber, and appointed an hour on the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get tidings of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme led to nothing; still he liked it.

Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at an early hour. He accepted his punishment with the toughest stoicism.

Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room, a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom used, for the family customarily dined in the back parlour. He stood before the mantelpiece, and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above — female heads: one, a type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but forlorn and desperate.

“She looked like
that
,” he said, gazing on the latter sketch, “when she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against the tree.”

“I suppose,” he pursued, when he was in his room, and seated on the edge of his pallet-bed — “I suppose she is what they call ‘
in love
’ — yes,
in love
with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah) — Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the same species — not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at — something so clear in her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me; it does me good. She has long eyelashes. Their shadow seems to rest where she gazes, and to instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and continues to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her a good turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing my mother and that ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like humouring Moore; but whatever I do I’ll be paid for, and in coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I will claim — one displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself.”

He turned into bed.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MARTIN’S TACTICS.

It was necessary to the arrangement of Martin’s plan that he should stay at home that day. Accordingly, he found no appetite for breakfast, and just about school-time took a severe pain about his heart, which rendered it advisable that, instead of setting out to the grammar school with Mark, he should succeed to his father’s arm-chair by the fireside, and also to his morning paper. This point being satisfactorily settled, and Mark being gone to Mr. Summer’s class, and Matthew and Mr. Yorke withdrawn to the counting-house, three other exploits — nay, four — remained to be achieved.

The first of these was to realize the breakfast he had not yet tasted, and with which his appetite of fifteen could ill afford to dispense; the second, third, fourth, to get his mother, Miss Moore, and Mrs. Horsfall successfully out of the way before four o’clock that afternoon.

The first was, for the present, the most pressing, since the work before him demanded an amount of energy which the present empty condition of his youthful stomach did not seem likely to supply.

Martin knew the way to the larder, and knowing this way he took it. The servants were in the kitchen, breakfasting solemnly with closed doors; his mother and Miss Moore were airing themselves on the lawn, and discussing the closed doors aforesaid. Martin, safe in the larder, made fastidious selection from its stores. His breakfast had been delayed; he was determined it should be
recherché
. It appeared to him that a variety on his usual somewhat insipid fare of bread and milk was both desirable and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought might be combined. There was store of rosy apples laid in straw upon a shelf; he picked out three. There was pastry upon a dish; he selected an apricot puff and a damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye did not dwell; but he surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes, and condescended to make choice of one. Thanks to his clasp-knife, he was able to appropriate a wing of fowl and a slice of ham; a cantlet of cold custard-pudding he thought would harmonize with these articles; and having made this final addition to his booty, he at length sallied forth into the hall.

He was already half-way across — three steps more would have anchored him in the harbour of the back parlour — when the front door opened, and there stood Matthew. Better far had it been the Old Gentleman, in full equipage of horns, hoofs, and tail.

Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about the heart. He had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase “shamming Abraham” had been very distinctly audible, and the succession to the armchair and newspaper had appeared to affect him with mental spasms. The spectacle now before him — the apples, the tarts, the tea-cakes, the fowl, ham, and pudding — offered evidence but too well calculated to inflate his opinion of his own sagacity.

Martin paused
interdit
one minute, one instant; the next he knew his ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity
des âmes élites
, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to secure the accomplishment of his second task — namely, the disposal of his mother. He knew that a collision between him and Matthew always suggested to Mrs. Yorke the propriety of a fit of hysterics. He further knew that, on the principle of calm succeeding to storm, after a morning of hysterics his mother was sure to indulge in an afternoon of bed. This would accommodate him perfectly.

The collision duly took place in the hall. A dry laugh, an insulting sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met by a nonchalant but most cutting reply, were the signals. They rushed at it. Martin, who usually made little noise on these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the servants, Mrs. Yorke, Miss Moore. No female hand could separate them. Mr. Yorke was summoned.

“Sons,” said he, “one of you must leave my roof if this occurs again. I will have no Cain and Abel strife here.”

Martin now allowed himself to be taken off. He had been hurt; he was the youngest and slightest. He was quite cool, in no passion; he even smiled, content that the most difficult part of the labour he had set himself was over.

Once he seemed to flag in the course of the morning.

“It is not worth while to bother myself for that Caroline,” he remarked. But a quarter of an hour afterwards he was again in the dining-room, looking at the head with dishevelled tresses, and eyes turbid with despair.

“Yes,” he said, “I made her sob, shudder, almost faint. I’ll see her smile before I’ve done with her; besides, I want to outwit all these womenites.”

Directly after dinner Mrs. Yorke fulfilled her son’s calculation by withdrawing to her chamber. Now for Hortense.

That lady was just comfortably settled to stocking-mending in the back parlour, when Martin — laying down a book which, stretched on the sofa (he was still indisposed, according to his own account), he had been perusing in all the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha — lazily introduced some discourse about Sarah, the maid at the Hollow. In the course of much verbal meandering he insinuated information that this damsel was said to have three suitors — Frederic Murgatroyd, Jeremiah Pighills, and John-of-Mally’s-of-Hannah’s-of-Deb’s; and that Miss Mann had affirmed she knew for a fact that, now the girl was left in sole charge of the cottage, she often had her swains to meals, and entertained them with the best the house afforded.

It needed no more. Hortense could not have lived another hour without betaking herself to the scene of these nefarious transactions, and inspecting the state of matters in person. Mrs. Horsfall remained.

Martin, master of the field now, extracted from his mother’s work-basket a bunch of keys; with these he opened the sideboard cupboard, produced thence a black bottle and a small glass, placed them on the table, nimbly mounted the stairs, made for Mr. Moore’s door, tapped; the nurse opened.

“If you please, ma’am, you are invited to step into the back parlour and take some refreshment. You will not be disturbed; the family are out.”

He watched her down; he watched her in; himself shut the door. He knew she was safe.

The hard work was done; now for the pleasure. He snatched his cap, and away for the wood.

It was yet but half-past three. It had been a fine morning, but the sky looked dark now. It was beginning to snow; the wind blew cold; the wood looked dismal, the old tree grim. Yet Martin approved the shadow on his path. He found a charm in the spectral aspect of the doddered oak.

He had to wait. To and fro he walked, while the flakes fell faster; and the wind, which at first had but moaned, pitifully howled.

“She is long in coming,” he muttered, as he glanced along the narrow track. “I wonder,” he subjoined, “what I wish to see her so much for? She is not coming for me. But I have power over her, and I want her to come that I may use that power.”

He continued his walk.

“Now,” he resumed, when a further period had elapsed, “if she fails to come, I shall hate and scorn her.”

It struck four. He heard the church clock far away. A step so quick, so light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew fiercely now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she came, and not dismayed.

“Well, Martin,” she said eagerly, “how is he?”

“It is queer how she thinks of
him
,” reflected Martin. “The blinding snow and bitter cold are nothing to her, I believe; yet she is but a ‘chitty-faced creature,’ as my mother would say. I could find in my heart to wish I had a cloak to wrap her in.”

Thus meditating to himself, he neglected to answer Miss Helstone.

“You have seen him?”

“No.”

“Oh! you promised you would.”

“I mean to do better by you than that. Didn’t I say
I
don’t care to see him?”

“But now it will be so long before I get to know any thing certain about him, and I am sick of waiting. Martin,
do
see him, and give him Caroline Helstone’s regards, and say she wished to know how he was, and if anything could be done for his comfort.”

“I won’t.”

“You are changed. You were so friendly last night.”

“Come, we must not stand in this wood; it is too cold.”

“But before I go promise me to come again to-morrow with news.”

“No such thing. I am much too delicate to make and keep such appointments in the winter season. If you knew what a pain I had in my chest this morning, and how I went without breakfast, and was knocked down besides, you’d feel the impropriety of bringing me here in the snow. Come, I say.”

“Are you really delicate, Martin?”

“Don’t I look so?”

“You have rosy cheeks.”

“That’s hectic. Will you come — or you won’t?”

“Where?”

“With me. I was a fool not to bring a cloak. I would have made you cosy.”

“You are going home; my nearest road lies in the opposite direction.”

“Put your arm through mine; I’ll take care of you.”

“But the wall — the hedge — it is such hard work climbing, and you are too slender and young to help me without hurting yourself.”

“You shall go through the gate.”

“But —
 
— “

“But, but — will you trust me or not?”

She looked into his face.

“I think I will. Anything rather than return as anxious as I came.”

“I can’t answer for that. This, however, I promise you: be ruled by me, and you shall see Moore yourself.”

“See him myself?”

“Yourself.”

“But, dear Martin, does he know?”

“Ah! I’m dear now. No, he doesn’t know.”

“And your mother and the others?”

“All is right.”

Caroline fell into a long, silent fit of musing, but still she walked on with her guide. They came in sight of Briarmains.

“Have you made up your mind?” he asked.

She was silent.

“Decide; we are just on the spot. I
won’t
see him — that I tell you — except to announce your arrival.”

“Martin, you are a strange boy, and this is a strange step; but all I feel
is
and
has
been, for a long time, strange. I will see him.”

“Having said that, you will neither hesitate nor retract?”

“No.”

“Here we are, then. Do not be afraid of passing the parlour window; no one will see you. My father and Matthew are at the mill, Mark is at school, the servants are in the back kitchen, Miss Moore is at the cottage, my mother in her bed, and Mrs. Horsfall in paradise. Observe — I need not ring. I open the door; the hall is empty, the staircase quiet; so is the gallery. The whole house and all its inhabitants are under a spell, which I will not break till you are gone.”

“Martin, I trust you.”

“You never said a better word. Let me take your shawl. I will shake off the snow and dry it for you. You are cold and wet. Never mind; there is a fire upstairs. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Follow me.”

He left his shoes on the mat, mounted the stair unshod. Caroline stole after, with noiseless step. There was a gallery, and there was a passage; at the end of that passage Martin paused before a door and tapped. He had to tap twice — thrice. A voice, known to one listener, at last said, “Come in.”