Shirley (39 page)

already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak again.

Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted
éclat
, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into

the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would

have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe her to death.

However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile even at

any one under mortification. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed—for Shirley had looks and tones that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could not challenge

the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently
very
civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like

March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.

For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit in case of some new emergency

arising, he took his seat,—not on the sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet

near the fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He

talked to the ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most intensely commonplace.

He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere

he opened his mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in narrower compass; he made of it a

handsome band. To what purpose would he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his

throat—his head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had an inventive, an

original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that attitude, he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident he felt this device to be worth an

encore; he repeated it more than once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh

her silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside, that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point

in Peter's demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The £5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in

the balance against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful management.

From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some difficulty in persuading Mr.

Donne to descend. At length, however, that gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused—not a whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is

insensible to shame. He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make colour mount to his cheek; he had no

fire in his blood and no modesty in his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the commonplace—conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar!

He knew no more, however, how to set about the business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion was, when

he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be

master of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not have suspected his intentions when he addressed

his intended bride in an impertinent, injured tone—"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal."

"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am very fond of him."

"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady fond of that brute—'tis so ugly

—a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him."

"Hang what I am fond of!"

"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle—something appropriate to the fair

sex. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."

"Perhaps I am an exception."

"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That is universally allowed."

"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any harm."

"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When I
sor
him" (such was Mr.

Donne's pronunciation) "about to spring, I thought I should have fainted."

"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."

"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the enemy."

"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"

"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at last by saying the dog

was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been assured of this, I would have remained all day in the

chamber. But what is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"

And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening to the garden, stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour. He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry.

"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar

sprang down the pavement towards the gate, bellowing
avec explosion
. His mistress quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting

up his huge, blunt, stupid head to the new callers to be patted.

"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you know us? Good-morning, old boy!"

And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed.

He had no fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew

to the sunny front of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was only his mistress's hand whose touch

gave him pleasure; to all others he showed himself obstinately insensible.

Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with them cordially. They were

come to tell her of certain successes they had achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions

to the fund. Mr. Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who was come, ran out to meet him,

and put both her hands into his, he gazed down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression

that gave him the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.

Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the ladies walking one on each

side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day; the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets. Both of them looked pretty—one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the

profusely blooming flowers whose perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling

her to choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.

Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under

the meridian sun. Donne was not grateful—he never
was
grateful for kindness and attention—but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of being impartial, offered the curates flowers.

They accepted them with native awkwardness. Malone seemed specially at a loss, when a bouquet filled one hand, while his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank you!" was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of sounds, implying that he considered this offering a homage to his

merits, and an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections.

Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and

nattily into his buttonhole.

As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning him apart, gave him some

commission, which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he flew, round by the courtyard to the kitchen. No need to give him directions; he was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared,

carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and bowers in the grounds, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid—Miss Keeldar kept no footman—came out, bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's nimble fingers aided

in disposing glasses, plates, knives, and forks; he assisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting of cold chicken, ham, and tarts.

This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight to offer any chance guests; and nothing pleased her better than to have an alert, obliging little friend, like Sweeting, to run about her hand, cheerily receive and briskly execute her hospitable hints. David and she were on the best terms in the

world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes.

The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone, indeed, contributed but little to its vivacity, the chief part they played in it being what concerned the knife, fork, and wine-glass; but where four such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were assembled in health

and amity, on a green lawn, under a sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be ungenial dullness.

In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that Whitsuntide was approaching, when

the grand united Sunday-school tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield, Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at her post as teacher, he said,

and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be wanting. He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of this sort. She

liked festive excitement, a gathering of happiness, a concentration and combination of pleasant details, a throng of glad faces, a muster of elated hearts. She told Mr. Hall they might count on her

with security. She did not know what she would have to do, but they might dispose of her as they pleased.

"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to my table, and to sit near me, Mr. Hall?"

"I shall not fail,
Deo volente
," said he.—"I have occupied the place on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six years," he proceeded, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not particularly self-confident by

nature, as you may have observed; and the first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is, and make tea in public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the speechless panic, the cups

shaking in the little hand, and the overflowing teapot filled too full from the urn. I came to her aid,

took a seat near her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made the tea for her like any old

woman."

"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.

"You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well, inasmuch as it was not like the majority of little ladies of twelve, whom you may help and caress for ever without their evincing