Shirley (63 page)

did not live for them. They were learned; so was he—but not for them. They were accomplished; he

had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could exceed the propriety of their behaviour.

I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but I remember a fact which strangely astonished

Caroline Helstone. It was—to discover that her cousin had absolutely
no
sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.

What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so indifferent to the dreary position

of a fellow-creature thus isolated under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never

noticed him—she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent, and she rarely recognized his

existence.

As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life, and who had made up his mind

to bear it for a time. His faculties seemed walled up in him, and were unmurmuring in their captivity.

He never laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the round of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he asked nothing more than civility from the rest of the world. It

even appeared that he would accept nothing more—in that abode at least; for when his cousin Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage them—he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a singular partiality for him—a partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and

sat down unwelcomed, Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to the taciturn tutor. Once—but once—she noticed the desertion, and holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back. Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but

yet disregarded the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches at Louis Moore's side. That

gentleman drew the dog's big, black-muzzled head on to his knee, patted him, and smiled one little smile to himself.

An acute observer might have remarked, in the course of the same evening, that after Tartar had resumed his allegiance to Shirley, and was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor

by one word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the word; he started erect at

the gesture, and came, with head lovingly depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given,

the significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face.

"Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"

Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually were, but at last she answered, "Yes—of

course; I knew it well."

"I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance."

"Well! what then?"

"It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never mentioned it to me."

"Why should it puzzle you?"

"It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a great deal—you talk freely. How was that circumstance never touched on?"

"Because it never was," and Shirley laughed.

"You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I thought I knew you quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. You were silent as the grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now again here is another secret.

But why you made it a secret is the mystery to me."

"I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing. If you had asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I thought you knew."

"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like poor Louis. Why? Are you

impatient at what you perhaps consider his
servile
position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly placed?"

"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone like the accents of scorn; and with a movement of proud impatience Shirley snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice.

"Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's brother. He
is
thus closely related to Gérard Moore of the Hollow, though nature has not given him features so handsome or an air so noble as his

kinsman; but his blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he free."

"Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "Men and angels, hear her! We should not despise plain features, nor a laborious yet honest occupation, should we? Look at the subject of your panegyric. He is there in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis Moore was visible, coming slowly down the walk.

"He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and be certain, if he had not something very commendable in his disposition, Mr. Hall would never seek his society as he does."

Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a slightly sarcastic sound. "Well, well," was her comment. "On the plea of the man being Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you? Not quite an idiot—

eh? Something commendable in his disposition!—
id est
, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will speak to him."

He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it was tenanted, he sat down on the step. Tartar,

now his customary companion, had followed him, and he couched across his feet.

"Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather the mutilated remains of that organ, torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "the autumn sun shines as pleasantly on us as on the fairest and richest.

This garden is none of ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't we?"

He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with exceeding affection. A faint twittering commenced among the trees round. Something fluttered down as light as leaves. They were little birds, which, lighting on the sward at shy distance, hopped as if expectant.

"The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day," again soliloquized Louis.

"They want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot to save a fragment. Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you."

He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty.

"A want easily supplied," whispered the listening Miss Keeldar.

She took from her reticule a morsel of sweet-cake; for that repository was never destitute of something available to throw to the chickens, young ducks, or sparrows. She crumbled it, and bending over his shoulder, put the crumbs into his hand.

"There," said she—"there is a providence for the improvident."

"This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis Moore, as, not at all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs on to the grass.

"Even for you?"

"As pleasant for me as for any monarch."

"You take a sort of harsh, solitary triumph in drawing pleasure out of the elements and the inanimate and lower animate creation."

"Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am Adam's son, the heir of him to whom dominion

was given over 'every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Your dog likes and follows me. When

I go into that yard, the pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your mare in the stable knows

me as well as it knows you, and obeys me better."

"And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give you shade."

"And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw these pleasures from me; they are
mine
."

He walked off. Tartar followed him, as if in duty and affection bound, and Shirley remained standing on the summer-house step. Caroline saw her face as she looked after the rude tutor. It was pale, as if her pride bled inwardly.

"You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings are so often hurt it makes him morose."

"You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic on which you and I shall quarrel if we discuss it often; so drop it henceforward and for ever."

"I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way," thought Caroline to herself, "and that renders Shirley so distant to him. Yet I wonder she cannot make allowance for character and circumstances. I wonder the general modesty, manliness, sincerity of his nature do not plead with her

in his behalf. She is not often so inconsiderate, so irritable."

The verbal testimony of two friends of Caroline's to her cousin's character augmented her

favourable opinion of him. William Farren, whose cottage he had visited in company with Mr. Hall,

pronounced him a "real gentleman;" there was not such another in Briarfield. He—William—"could do aught for that man. And then to see how t' bairns liked him, and how t' wife took to him first minute she saw him. He never went into a house but t' childer wor about him directly. Them little things wor like as if they'd a keener sense nor grown-up folks i' finding our folk's natures."

Mr. Hall, in answer to a question of Miss Helstone's as to what he thought of Louis Moore, replied

promptly that he was the best fellow he had met with since he left Cambridge.

"But he is so grave," objected Caroline.

"Grave! the finest company in the world! Full of odd, quiet, out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed

an excursion so much in my life as the one I took with him to the Lakes. His understanding and tastes

are so superior, it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to his temper and nature, I call them fine."

"At Fieldhead he looks gloomy, and, I believe, has the character of being misanthropical."

"Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there—in a false position. The Sympsons are most estimable

people, but not the folks to comprehend him. They think a great deal about form and ceremony, which

are quite out of Louis's way."

"I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him."

"She doesn't know him—she doesn't know him; otherwise she has sense enough to do justice to his

merits."

"Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline to herself, and by this hypothesis she endeavoured to account for what seemed else unaccountable. But such simple solution of the

difficulty was not left her long. She was obliged to refuse Miss Keeldar even this negative excuse for

her prejudice.

One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose amiable and affectionate

disposition had quickly recommended him to her regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical

contrivance; his lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last, opening an inner drawer, he came

upon—not a ball of cord or a lump of beeswax, but a little bundle of small marble-coloured cahiers,

tied with tape. Henry looked at them. "What rubbish Mr. Moore stores up in his desk!" he said. "I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully."

"What is it?"

"Old copy-books."

He threw the bundle to Caroline. The packet looked so neat externally her curiosity was excited to

see its contents.

"If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open them?"

"Oh yes, quite freely. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine—for he lets me keep all sorts of things in it—

and I give you leave."

On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions, written in a hand peculiar but compact, and exquisitely clean and clear. The writing was recognizable. She scarcely needed the further evidence of

the name signed at the close of each theme to tell her whose they were. Yet that name astonished her

—"Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove, ——shire" (a southern county), and a date four years back.

She tied up the packet, and held it in her hand, meditating over it. She half felt as if, in opening it, she had violated a confidence.

"They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly.

"Did
you
give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with Mrs. Pryor, I suppose?"

"She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove, when she lived with us there. Mr. Moore

taught her French; it is his native language."

"I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?"

"She was a wild, laughing thing, but pleasant to have in the room. She made lesson-time charming.

She learned fast—you could hardly tell when or how. French was nothing to her. She spoke it quick,

quick—as quick as Mr. Moore himself."

"Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?"

"She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy, but I liked her. I'm desperately fond of Shirley."

"
Desperately
fond—you small simpleton! You don't know what you say."

"I
am desperately
fond of her. She is the light of my eyes. I said so to Mr. Moore last night."

"He would reprove you for speaking with exaggeration."

"He didn't. He never reproves and reproves, as girls' governesses do. He was reading, and he only

smiled into his book, and said that if Miss Keeldar was no more than that, she was less than he took

her to be; for I was but a dim-eyed, short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor unfortunate, Miss Caroline Helstone. I am a cripple, you know."