Shirley (86 page)

or elsewhere. Yesterday towards dusk I had her to myself for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood

side by side; she was railing at me, and I was enjoying the sound of her voice. The young ladies passed, and looked at us; we did not separate. Ere long they repassed, and again looked. Mrs.

Sympson came; we did not move. Mr. Sympson opened the dining-room door. Shirley flashed him back full payment for his spying gaze. She curled her lip and tossed her tresses. The glance she gave

was at once explanatory and defiant. It said: 'I like Mr. Moore's society, and I dare you to find fault with my taste.'

"I asked, 'Do you mean him to understand how matters are?'

"'I do,' said she; 'but I leave the development to chance. There will be a scene. I neither invite it nor fear it; only, you must be present, for I am inexpressibly tired of facing him solus. I don't like to see him in a rage. He then puts off all his fine proprieties and conventional disguises, and the real human

being below is what you would call
commun, plat, bas—vilain et un peu méchant
. His ideas are not clean, Mr. Moore; they want scouring with soft soap and fuller's earth. I think, if he could add his imagination to the contents of Mrs. Gill's bucking-basket, and let her boil it in her copper, with rain-water and bleaching-powder (I hope you think me a tolerable laundress), it would do him incalculable

good.'

"This morning, fancying I heard her descend somewhat early, I was down instantly. I had not been

deceived. There she was, busy at work in the breakfast-parlour, of which the housemaid was completing the arrangement and dusting. She had risen betimes to finish some little keepsake she intended for Henry. I got only a cool reception, which I accepted till the girl was gone, taking my book to the window-seat very quietly. Even when we were alone I was slow to disturb her. To sit with

her in sight was happiness, and the proper happiness, for early morning—serene, incomplete, but progressive. Had I been obtrusive, I knew I should have encountered rebuff. 'Not at home to suitors'

was written on her brow. Therefore I read on, stole now and then a look, watched her countenance soften and open as she felt I respected her mood, and enjoyed the gentle content of the moment.

"The distance between us shrank, and the light hoar-frost thawed insensibly. Ere an hour elapsed I

was at her side, watching her sew, gathering her sweet smiles and her merry words, which fell for me

abundantly. We sat, as we had a right to sit, side by side; my arm rested on her chair; I was near enough to count the stitches of her work, and to discern the eye of her needle. The door suddenly opened.

"I believe, if I had just then started from her, she would have despised me. Thanks to the phlegm of my nature, I rarely start. When I am well-off,
bien
, comfortable, I am not soon stirred.
Bien
I was

—
très bien
—consequently immutable. No muscle moved. I hardly looked to the door.

"'Good-morning, uncle,' said she, addressing that personage, who paused on the threshold in a state of petrifaction.

"'Have you been long downstairs, Miss Keeldar, and alone with Mr. Moore?'

"'Yes, a very long time. We both came down early; it was scarcely light.'

"'The proceeding is improper——'

"'It was at first, I was rather cross, and not civil; but you will perceive that we are now friends.'

"'I perceive more than you would wish me to perceive.'

"'Hardly, sir,' said I; 'we have no disguises. Will you permit me to intimate that any further observations you have to make may as well be addressed to me? Henceforward I stand between Miss

Keeldar and all annoyance.'

"'
You!
What have
you
to do with Miss Keeldar?'

"'To protect, watch over, serve her.'

"'You, sir—you, the tutor?'

"'Not one word of insult, sir,' interposed she; 'not one syllable of disrespect to Mr. Moore in this house.'

"'Do you take his part?'

"'
His
part? oh yes!'

"She turned to me with a sudden fond movement, which I met by circling her with my arm. She and

I both rose.

"'Good Ged!' was the cry from the morning-gown standing quivering at the door.
Ged
, I think, must be the cognomen of Mr. Sympson's Lares. When hard pressed he always invokes this idol.

"'Come forward, uncle; you shall hear all.—Tell him all, Louis.'

"'I dare him to speak—the beggar! the knave! the specious hypocrite! the vile, insinuating, infamous menial!—Stand apart from my niece, sir. Let her go!'

"She clung to me with energy. 'I am near my future husband,' she said. 'Who dares touch him or me?'

"'Her husband!' He raised and spread his hands. He dropped into a seat.

"'A while ago you wanted much to know whom I meant to marry. My intention was then formed, but

not mature for communication. Now it is ripe, sun-mellowed, perfect. Take the crimson peach—take

Louis Moore!'

"'But' (savagely) 'you
shall not
have him; he
shall not
have you.'

"'I would die before I would have another. I would die if I might not have him.'

"He uttered words with which this page shall never be polluted.

"She turned white as death; she shook all over; she lost her strength. I laid her down on the sofa; just looked to ascertain that she had not fainted—of which, with a divine smile, she assured me. I kissed her; and then, if I were to perish, I cannot give a clear account of what happened in the course

of the next five minutes. She has since—through tears, laughter, and trembling—told me that I turned

terrible, and gave myself to the demon. She says I left her, made one bound across the room; that Mr.

Sympson vanished through the door as if shot from a cannon. I also vanished, and she heard Mrs. Gill

scream.

"Mrs. Gill was still screaming when I came to my senses. I was then in another apartment—the oak

parlour, I think. I held Sympson before me crushed into a chair, and my hand was on his cravat. His

eyes rolled in his head; I was strangling him, I think. The housekeeper stood wringing her hands, entreating me to desist. I desisted that moment, and felt at once as cool as stone. But I told Mrs. Gill to fetch the Red-House Inn chaise instantly, and informed Mr. Sympson he must depart from Fieldhead

the instant it came. Though half frightened out of his wits, he declared he would not. Repeating the former order, I added a commission to fetch a constable. I said, 'You
shall
go, by fair means or foul.'

"He threatened prosecution; I cared for nothing. I had stood over him once before, not quite so fiercely as now, but full as austerely. It was one night when burglars attempted the house at Sympson

Grove, and in his wretched cowardice he would have given a vain alarm, without daring to offer defence. I had then been obliged to protect his family and his abode by mastering himself—and I had

succeeded. I now remained with him till the chaise came. I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way. He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have resisted me, but knew not how.

He called for his wife and daughters to come. I said they should follow him as soon as they could prepare. The smoke, the fume, the fret of his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury incapable

of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must ever remain impotent. I know he will never

touch me with the law. I know his wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of

importance. I have long since earned her undying mother's gratitude by my devotion to her boy. In some of Henry's ailments I have nursed him—better, she said, than any woman could nurse. She will

never forget that. She and her daughters quitted me to-day, in mute wrath and consternation; but she

respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I lifted him into the carriage and placed him by her side, when I arranged her own wrapping to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I

saw the tears start to her eyes. She will but the more zealously advocate my cause because she has left

me in anger. I am glad of this—not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol—my Shirley."

Once again he writes, a week after:—"I am now at Stilbro'. I have taken up my temporary abode with a friend—a professional man, in whose business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine? I am not

easy, not tranquil; I am tantalized, sometimes tortured. To see her now, one would think she had never

pressed her cheek to my shoulder, or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders

me miserable. I am shunned when I visit her; she withdraws from my reach. Once this day I lifted her

face, resolved to get a full look down her deep, dark eyes. Difficult to describe what I read there!

Pantheress! beautiful forest-born! wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain; I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her wild woods and pinings after virgin freedom. I wish

Sympson would come again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish there was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall lose her. No; final loss I do not fear, but long delay

——

"It is now night—midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at Fieldhead. Some hours ago

she passed me, coming down the oak staircase to the hall. She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How closely she glided

against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she

looked—slim and swift as a northern streamer!

"I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone were both there; she has

summoned them to bear her company awhile. In her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing

full and wavy, with her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning, she looked, I thought, spirit-like—a thing made of an element, the child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray

and raindrop—a thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following her with my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I talked with the other ladies as well

as I could, but still I looked at her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to me—not even when

she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs. Gill. I passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a word as she returned; nor in this did I fail.

"'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I, meeting her.

"'Why? the hall is too cold.'

"'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.'

"'But I shiver.'

"'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and distant. Why?'

"'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight.'

"'
Do not—do not
pass! Stay with me awhile. Let us exchange a few quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes are cruel.'

"'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly enough. Indeed there was softness in her whole deportment—in her face, in her voice; but there was also reserve, and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible.

"'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly a week since you called me your future husband and treated me as such. Now I am once more the tutor for you. I am addressed as Mr. Moore and sir.

Your lips have forgotten Louis.'

"'No, Louis, no. It is an easy, liquid name—not soon forgotten.'

"'Be cordial to Louis, then; approach him—let him approach.'

"'I
am
cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow.

"'Your voice is very sweet and very low,' I answered, quietly advancing. 'You seem subdued, but still startled.'

"'No—quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured me.

"'Of nothing but your votary.'

"I bent a knee to the flags at her feet.

"'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I don't know myself; I don't know you. But rise. When

you do so I feel troubled and disturbed.'

"I obeyed. It would not have suited me to retain that attitude long. I courted serenity and confidence for her, and not vainly. She trusted and clung to me again.

"'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far from happy in my present uncertain, unsettled state.'

"'Oh yes, you
are
happy!' she cried hastily. 'You don't know how happy you are. Any change will be for the worse.'

"'Happy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer. You are too generous to require it.'

"'Be reasonable, Louis; be patient! I like you because you are patient.'

"'Like me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix our marriage day; think of it to-night, and decide.'

"She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted, from my arms—and I lost

her."

37

Chapter

THE WINDING-UP.

Yes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate the final fates of some of the

personages whose acquaintance we have made in this narrative, and then you and I must shake hands,

and for the present separate.

Let us turn to the curates—to the much-loved, though long-neglected. Come forward, modest

merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers the invocation. He knows his own description when he hears

it.

No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It won't do. Impossible to trust ourselves

with the touching tale of your deeds and destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig is no more relished now than it was in days of yore?