The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë

by Charlotte Bronte

  “Sometimes, uncle, when I forget.”

  “Then it is that which is poisoning you. The paints are deleterious, child. There is white lead and red lead, and verdigris, and gamboge, and twenty other poisons in those colour cakes. Lock them up! lock them up! Get your bonnet on. I want you to make a call with me.”

  “With you, uncle?”

  This question was asked in a tone of surprise. She was not accustomed to make calls with her uncle. She never rode or walked out with him on any occasion.

  “Quick! quick! I am always busy, you know. I have no time to lose.”

  She hurriedly gathered up her materials, asking, meantime, where they were going.

  “To Fieldhead.”

  “Fieldhead! What! to see old James Booth, the gardener? Is he ill?”

  “We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar.”

  “Miss Keeldar! Is she coming to Yorkshire? Is she at Fieldhead?”

  “She is. She has been there a week. I met her at a party last night — that party to which you would not go. I was pleased with her. I choose that you shall make her acquaintance. It will do you good.”

  “She is now come of age, I suppose?”

  “She is come of age, and will reside for a time on her property. I lectured her on the subject; I showed her her duty. She is not intractable. She is rather a fine girl; she will teach you what it is to have a sprightly spirit. Nothing lackadaisical about her.”

  “I don’t think she will want to see me, or to have me introduced to her. What good can I do her? How can I amuse her?”

  “Pshaw! Put your bonnet on.”

  “Is she proud, uncle?”

  “Don’t know. You hardly imagine she would show her pride to me, I suppose? A chit like that would scarcely presume to give herself airs with the rector of her parish, however rich she might be.”

  “No. But how did she behave to other people?”

  “Didn’t observe. She holds her head high, and probably can be saucy enough where she dare. She wouldn’t be a woman otherwise. There! Away now for your bonnet at once!”

  Not naturally very confident, a failure of physical strength and a depression of spirits had not tended to increase Caroline’s presence of mind and ease of manner, or to give her additional courage to face strangers, and she quailed, in spite of self-remonstrance, as she and her uncle walked up the broad, paved approach leading from the gateway of Fieldhead to its porch. She followed Mr. Helstone reluctantly through that porch into the sombre old vestibule beyond.

  Very sombre it was — long, vast, and dark; one latticed window lit it but dimly. The wide old chimney contained now no fire, for the present warm weather needed it not; it was filled instead with willow-boughs. The gallery on high, opposite the entrance, was seen but in outline, so shadowy became this hall towards its ceiling. Carved stags’ heads, with real antlers, looked down grotesquely from the walls. This was neither a grand nor a comfortable house; within as without it was antique, rambling, and incommodious. A property of a thousand a year belonged to it, which property had descended, for lack of male heirs, on a female. There were mercantile families in the district boasting twice the income, but the Keeldars, by virtue of their antiquity, and their distinction of lords of the manor, took the precedence of all.

  Mr. and Miss Helstone were ushered into a parlour. Of course, as was to be expected in such a Gothic old barrack, this parlour was lined with oak: fine, dark, glossy panels compassed the walls gloomily and grandly. Very handsome, reader, these shining brown panels are, very mellow in colouring and tasteful in effect, but — if you know what a “spring clean” is — very execrable and inhuman. Whoever, having the bowels of humanity, has seen servants scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with beeswaxed cloths on a warm May day must allow that they are “intolerable and not to be endured;” and I cannot but secretly applaud the benevolent barbarian who had painted another and larger apartment of Fieldhead — the drawing-room, to wit, formerly also an oak-room — of a delicate pinky white, thereby earning for himself the character of a Hun, but mightily enhancing the cheerfulness of that portion of his abode, and saving future housemaids a world of toil.

  The brown-panelled parlour was furnished all in old style, and with real old furniture. On each side of the high mantelpiece stood two antique chairs of oak, solid as silvan thrones, and in one of these sat a lady. But if this were Miss Keeldar, she must have come of age at least some twenty years ago. She was of matronly form, and though she wore no cap, and possessed hair of quite an undimmed auburn, shading small and naturally young-looking features, she had no youthful aspect, nor apparently the wish to assume it. You could have wished her attire of a newer fashion. In a well-cut, well-made gown hers would have been no uncomely presence. It puzzled you to guess why a garment of handsome materials should be arranged in such scanty folds, and devised after such an obsolete mode. You felt disposed to set down the wearer as somewhat eccentric at once.

  This lady received the visitors with a mixture of ceremony and diffidence quite English. No middle-aged matron who was not an Englishwoman could evince precisely the same manner — a manner so uncertain of herself, of her own merits, of her power to please, and yet so anxious to be proper, and, if possible, rather agreeable than otherwise. In the present instance, however, more embarrassment was shown than is usual even with diffident Englishwomen. Miss Helstone felt this, sympathized with the stranger, and knowing by experience what was good for the timid, took a seat quietly near her, and began to talk to her with a gentle ease, communicated for the moment by the presence of one less self-possessed than herself.

  She and this lady would, if alone, have at once got on extremely well together. The lady had the clearest voice imaginable — infinitely softer and more tuneful than could have been reasonably expected from forty years — and a form decidedly inclined to embonpoint. This voice Caroline liked; it atoned for the formal, if correct, accent and language. The lady would soon have discovered she liked it and her, and in ten minutes they would have been friends. But Mr. Helstone stood on the rug looking at them both, looking especially at the strange lady with his sarcastic, keen eye, that clearly expressed impatience of her chilly ceremony, and annoyance at her want of aplomb. His hard gaze and rasping voice discomfited the lady more and more. She tried, however, to get up little speeches about the weather, the aspect of the country, etc.; but the impracticable Mr. Helstone presently found himself somewhat deaf. Whatever she said he affected not to hear distinctly, and she was obliged to go over each elaborately-constructed nothing twice. The effort soon became too much for her. She was just rising in a perplexed flutter, nervously murmuring that she knew not what detained Miss Keeldar, that she would go and look for her, when Miss Keeldar saved her the trouble by appearing. It was to be presumed at least that she who now came in through a glass door from the garden owned that name.

  There is real grace in ease of manner, and so old Helstone felt when an erect, slight girl walked up to him, retaining with her left hand her little silk apron full of flowers, and, giving him her right hand, said pleasantly, “I knew you would come to see me, though you do think Mr. Yorke has made me a Jacobin. Good-morning.”

  “But we’ll not have you a Jacobin,” returned he. “No, Miss Shirley; they shall not steal the flower of my parish from me. Now that you are amongst us, you shall be my pupil in politics and religion; I’ll teach you sound doctrine on both points.”

  “Mrs. Pryor has anticipated you,” she replied, turning to the elder lady. “Mrs. Pryor, you know, was my governess, and is still my friend; and of all the high and rigid Tories she is queen; of all the stanch churchwomen she is chief. I have been well drilled both in theology and history, I assure you, Mr. Helstone.”

  The rector immediately bowed very low to Mrs. Pryor, and expressed himself obliged to her.

  The ex-governess disclaimed skill either in political or religious controversy, explained that she thought such matters little adapted for female minds, but avowed hers
elf in general terms the advocate of order and loyalty, and, of course, truly attached to the Establishment. She added she was ever averse to change under any circumstances, and something scarcely audible about the extreme danger of being too ready to take up new ideas closed her sentence.

  “Miss Keeldar thinks as you think, I hope, madam.”

  “Difference of age and difference of temperament occasion difference of sentiment,” was the reply. “It can scarcely be expected that the eager and young should hold the opinions of the cool and middle-aged.”

  “Oh! oh! we are independent; we think for ourselves!” cried Mr. Helstone. “We are a little Jacobin, for anything I know — a little freethinker, in good earnest. Let us have a confession of faith on the spot.”

  And he took the heiress’s two hands — causing her to let fall her whole cargo of flowers — and seated her by him on the sofa.

  “Say your creed,” he ordered.

  “The Apostles’ Creed?”

  “Yes.”

  She said it like a child.

  “Now for St. Athanasius’s. That’s the test!”

  “Let me gather up my flowers. Here is Tartar coming; he will tread upon them.”

  Tartar was a rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he was turning round preparatory to depositing his tawny bulk upon them, when Miss Helstone and Miss Keeldar simultaneously stooped to the rescue.

  “Thank you,” said the heiress, as she again held out her little apron for Caroline to heap the blossoms into it. “Is this your daughter, Mr. Helstone?” she asked.

  “My niece Caroline.”

  Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and then looked at her. Caroline also looked at her hostess.

  Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage, Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a boy they had been blessed) — Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye. Her height and shape were not unlike Miss Helstone’s; perhaps in stature she might have the advantage by an inch or two. She was gracefully made, and her face, too, possessed a charm as well described by the word grace as any other. It was pale naturally, but intelligent, and of varied expression. She was not a blonde, like Caroline. Clear and dark were the characteristics of her aspect as to colour. Her face and brow were clear, her eyes of the darkest gray (no green lights in them — transparent, pure, neutral gray), and her hair of the darkest brown. Her features were distinguished — by which I do not mean that they were high, bony, and Roman, being indeed rather small and slightly marked than otherwise, but only that they were, to use a few French words, “fins, gracieux, spirituels” — mobile they were and speaking; but their changes were not to be understood nor their language interpreted all at once. She examined Caroline seriously, inclining her head a little to one side, with a thoughtful air.

  “You see she is only a feeble chick,” observed Mr. Helstone.

  “She looks young — younger than I. — How old are you?” she inquired in a manner that would have been patronizing if it had not been extremely solemn and simple.

  “Eighteen years and six months.”

  “And I am twenty-one.”

  She said no more. She had now placed her flowers on the table, and was busied in arranging them.

  “And St. Athanasius’s Creed?” urged the rector. “You believe it all, don’t you?”

  “I can’t remember it quite all. I will give you a nosegay, Mr. Helstone, when I have given your niece one.”

  She had selected a little bouquet of one brilliant and two or three delicate flowers, relieved by a spray of dark verdure. She tied it with silk from her workbox, and placed it on Caroline’s lap; and then she put her hands behind her, and stood bending slightly towards her guest, still regarding her, in the attitude and with something of the aspect of a grave but gallant little cavalier. This temporary expression of face was aided by the style in which she wore her hair, parted on one temple, and brushed in a glossy sweep above the forehead, whence it fell in curls that looked natural, so free were their wavy undulations.

  “Are you tired with your walk?” she inquired.

  “No — not in the least. It is but a short distance — but a mile.”

  “You look pale. — Is she always so pale?” she asked, turning to the rector.

  “She used to be as rosy as the reddest of your flowers.”

  “Why is she altered? What has made her pale? Has she been ill?”

  “She tells me she wants a change.”

  “She ought to have one. You ought to give her one. You should send her to the sea-coast.”

  “I will, ere summer is over. Meantime, I intend her to make acquaintance with you, if you have no objection.”

  “I am sure Miss Keeldar will have no objection,” here observed Mrs. Pryor. “I think I may take it upon me to say that Miss Helstone’s frequent presence at Fieldhead will be esteemed a favour.”

  “You speak my sentiments precisely, ma’am,” said Shirley, “and I thank you for anticipating me. — Let me tell you,” she continued, turning again to Caroline, “that you also ought to thank my governess. It is not every one she would welcome as she has welcomed you. You are distinguished more than you think. This morning, as soon as you are gone, I shall ask Mrs. Pryor’s opinion of you. I am apt to rely on her judgment of character, for hitherto I have found it wondrous accurate. Already I foresee a favourable answer to my inquiries. — Do I not guess rightly, Mrs. Pryor?”

  “My dear, you said but now you would ask my opinion when Miss Helstone was gone. I am scarcely likely to give it in her presence.”

  “No; and perhaps it will be long enough before I obtain it. — I am sometimes sadly tantalized, Mr. Helstone, by Mrs. Pryor’s extreme caution. Her judgments ought to be correct when they come, for they are often as tardy of delivery as a Lord Chancellor’s. On some people’s characters I cannot get her to pronounce a sentence, entreat as I may.”

  Mrs. Pryor here smiled.

  “Yes,” said her pupil, “I know what that smile means. You are thinking of my gentleman-tenant. — Do you know Mr. Moore of the Hollow?” she asked Mr. Helstone.

  “Ay! ay! Your tenant — so he is. You have seen a good deal of him, no doubt, since you came?”

  “I have been obliged to see him. There was business to transact. Business! Really the word makes me conscious I am indeed no longer a girl, but quite a woman and something more. I am an esquire! Shirley Keeldar, Esquire, ought to be my style and title. They gave me a man’s name; I hold a man’s position. It is enough to inspire me with a touch of manhood; and when I see such people as that stately Anglo-Belgian — that Gérard Moore — before me, gravely talking to me of business, really I feel quite gentlemanlike. You must choose me for your churchwarden, Mr. Helstone, the next time you elect new ones. They ought to make me a magistrate and a captain of yeomanry. Tony Lumpkin’s mother was a colonel, and his aunt a justice of the peace. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “With all my heart. If you choose to get up a requisition on the subject, I promise to head the list of signatures with my name. But you were speaking of Moore?”

  “Ah! yes. I find it a little difficult to understand Mr. Moore, to know what to think of him, whether to like him or not. He seems a tenant of whom any proprietor might be proud — and proud of him I am, in that sense; but as a neighbour, what is he? Again and again I have entreated Mrs. Pryor to say what she thinks of him, but she still evades returning a direct answer. I hope you will be less oracular, Mr. Helstone, and pronounce at once. Do you like him?”

  “Not at all, just now. His name is e
ntirely blotted from my good books.”

  “What is the matter? What has he done?”

  “My uncle and he disagree on politics,” interposed the low voice of Caroline. She had better not have spoken just then. Having scarcely joined in the conversation before, it was not apropos to do it now. She felt this with nervous acuteness as soon as she had spoken, and coloured to the eyes.

  “What are Moore’s politics?” inquired Shirley.

  “Those of a tradesman,” returned the rector — “narrow, selfish, and unpatriotic. The man is eternally writing and speaking against the continuance of the war. I have no patience with him.”

  “The war hurts his trade. I remember he remarked that only yesterday. But what other objection have you to him?”

  “That is enough.”