Shirley (53 page)

governesses. The daughters of trades-people, however well educated, must necessarily be underbred,

and as such unfit to be inmates of our dwellings, or guardians of our children's minds and persons.

We shall ever prefer to place those about OUR offspring who have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement as ourselves.'"

"Miss Hardman must have thought herself something better than her fellow-creatures, ma'am, since

she held that their calamities, and even crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. You say she was religious. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked God that he was

not as other men are, nor even as that publican."

"My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be the last person to wish to instil into your mind any feeling of dissatisfaction with your lot in life, or any sentiment of envy or insubordination towards your superiors. Implicit submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to our betters (under

which term I, of course, include the higher classes of society), are, in my opinion, indispensable to

the well-being of every community. All I mean to say, my dear, is that you had better not attempt to be

a governess, as the duties of the position would be too severe for your constitution. Not one word of

disrespect would I breathe towards either Mrs. or Miss Hardman; only, recalling my own experience,

I cannot but feel that, were you to fall under auspices such as theirs, you would contend a while courageously with your doom, then you would pine and grow too weak for your work; you would

come home—if you still had a home—broken down. Those languishing years would follow of which

none but the invalid and her immediate friends feel the heart-sickness and know the burden.

Consumption or decline would close the chapter. Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it

yours. My dear, we will now walk about a little, if you please."

They both rose, and slowly paced a green natural terrace bordering the chasm.

"My dear," ere long again began Mrs. Pryor, a sort of timid, embarrassed abruptness marking her manner as she spoke, "the young, especially those to whom nature has been favourable, often—

frequently—anticipate—look forward to—to marriage as the end, the goal of their hopes."

And she stopped. Caroline came to her relief with promptitude, showing a great deal more self-possession and courage than herself on the formidable topic now broached.

"They do, and naturally," she replied, with a calm emphasis that startled Mrs. Pryor. "They look forward to marriage with some one they love as the brightest, the only bright destiny that can await

them. Are they wrong?"

"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands; and again she paused. Caroline turned a searching, an eager eye on the face of her friend: that face was much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is an illusion."

"But not love! Love is real—the most real, the most lasting, the sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know."

"My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong—strong as death! Most of the cheats of existence are strong. As to their sweetness, nothing is so transitory; its date is a moment, the twinkling of an eye. The sting remains for ever. It may perish with the dawn of eternity, but it tortures through time

into its deepest night."

"Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is mutual love."

"Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?"

"Sometimes—whenever I can get them, indeed. But romance-writers might know nothing of love,

judging by the way in which they treat of it."

"Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly, "nor of marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be too strongly condemned. They are not like reality. They show

you only the green, tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or truthful hint of the slough underneath."

"But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There are happy marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are harmonious, marriage
must
be happy."

"It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one. There is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run the

risk—you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear. Let all the single be satisfied with their freedom."

"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay. "You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her most gloomy moments, like Miss Mann when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally

disposed. This is terrible!"

"No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the pleasant morning time of life; the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you. Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been living. She died! she died!"

"And, alas! my own mother and father——" exclaimed Caroline, struck by a sombre recollection.

"What of them?"

"Did I never tell you that they were separated?"

"I have heard it."

"They must, then, have been very miserable."

"You see all
facts
go to prove what I say."

"In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage."

"There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this life is a mere state of probation, wherein neither rest nor recompense is to be vouchsafed."

"But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?"

Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if a rude finger had pressed a naked nerve. Caroline felt she

had touched what would not bear the slightest contact.

"My marriage was unhappy," said the lady, summoning courage at last; "but yet——" She hesitated.

"But yet," suggested Caroline, "not immitigably wretched?"

"Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer tone; "God mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events that from the very same blind,

rash act whence sprang the curse of half our life may flow the blessing of the remainder. Then I am of

a peculiar disposition—I own that—far from facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought

never to have married. Mine is not the nature easily to find a duplicate or likely to assimilate with a

contrast. I was quite aware of my own ineligibility; and if I had not been so miserable as a governess,

I never should have married; and then——"

Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed. They entreated her to break the thick cloud of despair which

her previous words had seemed to spread over life.

"And then, my dear, Mr.—that is, the gentleman I married—was, perhaps, rather an exceptional than

an average character. I hope, at least, the experience of few has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind; relief was so hopeless, redress

so unattainable. But, my dear, I do not wish to dishearten; I only wish to warn you, and to prove that

the single should not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the worse."

"Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand your kind intentions, but there is no fear of my falling into the error to which you allude. I, at least, have no thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to make myself a position by some other means."

"My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say I have carefully deliberated, having, indeed, revolved the subject in my thoughts ever since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation.

You know I at present reside with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion. Should she marry (and

that she
will
marry ere long many circumstances induce me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity. I must tell you that I possess a small independency, arising partly from my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since. Whenever I leave Fieldhead I shall take a

house of my own. I could not endure to live in solitude. I have no relations whom I care to invite to

close intimacy; for, as you must have observed, and as I have already avowed, my habits and tastes

have their peculiarities. To you, my dear, I need not say I am attached; with you I am happier than I

have ever been with any living thing" (this was said with marked emphasis). "Your society I should esteem a very dear privilege—an inestimable privilege, a comfort, a blessing. You shall come to me,

then. Caroline, do you refuse me? I hope you can love me?"

And with these two abrupt questions she stopped.

"Indeed, I
do
love you," was the reply. "I should like to live with you. But you are too kind."

"All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to you. You should be provided for. But never again say I am
too kind
. You pierce my heart, child!"

"But, my dear madam—this generosity—I have no claim——"

"Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some things we cannot bear to hear. Oh! it is late to

begin, but I may yet live a few years. I can never wipe out the past, but perhaps a brief space in the

future may yet be mine."

Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

Caroline kissed her, in her gentle, caressing way, saying softly, "I love you dearly. Don't cry."

But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head to her knee, and wept aloud.

Nothing could console her till the inward storm had had its way. At last the agony subsided of itself.

"Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss, "poor lonely lamb! But come," she added abruptly—"come; we must go home."

For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however, she calmed down to her wonted manner, fell into her usual characteristic pace—a peculiar one, like all her movements—and

by the time they reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as usual, still and shy.

22

Chapter

TWO LIVES.

Only half of Moore's activity and resolution had been seen in his defence of the mill; he showed the

other half (and a terrible half it was) in the indefatigable, the relentless assiduity with which he pursued the leaders of the riot. The mob, the mere followers, he let alone. Perhaps an innate sense of

justice told him that men misled by false counsel and goaded by privations are not fit objects of vengeance, and that he who would visit an even violent act on the bent head of suffering is a tyrant,

not a judge. At all events, though he knew many of the number, having recognized them during the

latter part of the attack when day began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on street and road without

notice or threat.

The leaders he did not know. They were strangers—emissaries from the large towns. Most of these

were not members of the operative class. They were chiefly "down-draughts," bankrupts, men always in debt and often in drink, men who had nothing to lose, and much, in the way of character, cash, and

cleanliness, to gain. These persons Moore hunted like any sleuth-hound, and well he liked the occupation. Its excitement was of a kind pleasant to his nature. He liked it better than making cloth.

His horse must have hated these times, for it was ridden both hard and often. He almost lived on the

road, and the fresh air was as welcome to his lungs as the policeman's quest to his mood; he preferred

it to the steam of dye-houses. The magistrates of the district must have dreaded him. They were slow,

timid men; he liked both to frighten and to rouse them. He liked to force them to betray a certain fear, which made them alike falter in resolve and recoil in action—the fear, simply, of assassination. This,

indeed, was the dread which had hitherto hampered every manufacturer and almost every public man

in the district. Helstone alone had ever repelled it. The old Cossack knew well he might be shot. He

knew there was risk; but such death had for his nerves no terrors. It would have been his chosen, might he have had a choice.

Moore likewise knew his danger. The result was an unquenchable scorn of the quarter whence such

danger was to be apprehended. The consciousness that he hunted assassins was the spur in his high-

mettled temper's flank. As for fear, he was too proud, too hard-natured (if you will), too phlegmatic a

man to fear. Many a time he rode belated over the moors, moonlit or moonless as the case might be,

with feelings far more elate, faculties far better refreshed, than when safety and stagnation environed

him in the counting-house. Four was the number of the leaders to be accounted for. Two, in the course

of a fortnight, were brought to bay near Stilbro'; the remaining two it was necessary to seek farther

off. Their haunts were supposed to lie near Birmingham.

Meantime the clothier did not neglect his battered mill. Its reparation was esteemed a light task, carpenters' and glaziers' work alone being needed. The rioters not having succeeded in effecting an

entrance, his grim metal darlings—the machines—had escaped damage.

Whether during this busy life—whether while stern justice and exacting business claimed his

energies and harassed his thoughts—he now and then gave one moment, dedicated one effort, to keep

alive gentler fires than those which smoulder in the fane of Nemesis, it was not easy to discover. He

seldom went near Fieldhead; if he did, his visits were brief. If he called at the rectory, it was only to hold conferences with the rector in his study. He maintained his rigid course very steadily. Meantime

the history of the year continued troubled. There was no lull in the tempest of war; her long hurricane