“He looks the gentleman, in my sense of the term,” pursued Shirley, “and it pleases me to think he is such.”
Caroline rent the Tyrian petals of the one brilliant flower in her bouquet, and answered in distinct tones, “Decidedly he is.” Shirley, hearing this courageous affirmation, flashed an arch, searching glance at the speaker from her deep, expressive eyes.
“You are his friend, at any rate,” she said. “You defend him in his absence.”
“I am both his friend and his relative,” was the prompt reply. “Robert Moore is my cousin.”
“Oh, then, you can tell me all about him. Just give me a sketch of his character.”
Insuperable embarrassment seized Caroline when this demand was made. She could not, and did not, attempt to comply with it. Her silence was immediately covered by Mrs. Pryor, who proceeded to address sundry questions to Mr. Helstone regarding a family or two in the neighbourhood, with whose connections in the south she said she was acquainted. Shirley soon withdrew her gaze from Miss Helstone’s face. She did not renew her interrogations, but returning to her flowers, proceeded to choose a nosegay for the rector. She presented it to him as he took leave, and received the homage of a salute on the hand in return.
“Be sure you wear it for my sake,” said she.
“Next my heart, of course,” responded Helstone. — “Mrs. Pryor, take care of this future magistrate, this churchwarden in perspective, this captain of yeomanry, this young squire of Briarfield, in a word. Don’t let him exert himself too much; don’t let him break his neck in hunting; especially, let him mind how he rides down that dangerous hill near the Hollow.”
“I like a descent,” said Shirley; “I like to clear it rapidly; and especially I like that romantic Hollow with all my heart.”
“Romantic, with a mill in it?”
“Romantic with a mill in it. The old mill and the white cottage are each admirable in its way.”
“And the counting-house, Mr. Keeldar?”
“The counting-house is better than my bloom-coloured drawing-room. I adore the counting-house.”
“And the trade? The cloth, the greasy wool, the polluting dyeing-vats?”
“The trade is to be thoroughly respected.”
“And the tradesman is a hero? Good!”
“I am glad to hear you say so. I thought the tradesman looked heroic.”
Mischief, spirit, and glee sparkled all over her face as she thus bandied words with the old Cossack, who almost equally enjoyed the tilt.
“Captain Keeldar, you have no mercantile blood in your veins. Why are you so fond of trade?”
“Because I am a millowner, of course. Half my income comes from the works in that Hollow.”
“Don’t enter into partnership — that’s all.”
“You’ve put it into my head! you’ve put it into my head!” she exclaimed, with a joyous laugh. “It will never get out. Thank you.” And waving her hand, white as a lily and fine as a fairy’s, she vanished within the porch, while the rector and his niece passed out through the arched gateway.
CHAPTER XII.
SHIRLEY AND CAROLINE.
Table of Contents
Shirley showed she had been sincere in saying she should be glad of Caroline’s society, by frequently seeking it; and, indeed, if she had not sought it, she would not have had it, for Miss Helstone was slow to make fresh acquaintance. She was always held back by the idea that people could not want her, that she could not amuse them; and a brilliant, happy, youthful creature like the heiress of Fieldhead seemed to her too completely independent of society so uninteresting as hers ever to find it really welcome.
Shirley might be brilliant, and probably happy likewise, but no one is independent of genial society; and though in about a month she had made the acquaintance of most of the families round, and was on quite free and easy terms with all the Misses Sykes, and all the Misses Pearson, and the two superlative Misses Wynne of Walden Hall, yet, it appeared, she found none amongst them very genial: she fraternized with none of them, to use her own words. If she had had the bliss to be really Shirley Keeldar, Esq., lord of the manor of Briarfield, there was not a single fair one in this and the two neighbouring parishes whom she should have felt disposed to request to become Mrs. Keeldar, lady of the manor. This declaration she made to Mrs. Pryor, who received it very quietly, as she did most of her pupil’s off-hand speeches, responding, “My dear, do not allow that habit of alluding to yourself as a gentleman to be confirmed. It is a strange one. Those who do not know you, hearing you speak thus, would think you affected masculine manners.”
Shirley never laughed at her former governess; even the little formalities and harmless peculiarities of that lady were respectable in her eyes. Had it been otherwise, she would have proved herself a weak character at once; for it is only the weak who make a butt of quiet worth. Therefore she took her remonstrance in silence. She stood quietly near the window, looking at the grand cedar on her lawn watching a bird on one of its lower boughs. Presently she began to chirrup to the bird; soon her chirrup grew clearer; ere long she was whistling; the whistle struck into a tune, and very sweetly and deftly it was executed.
“My dear!” expostulated Mrs. Pryor.
“Was I whistling?” said Shirley. “I forgot. I beg your pardon, ma’am. I had resolved to take care not to whistle before you.”
“But, Miss Keeldar, where did you learn to whistle? You must have got the habit since you came down into Yorkshire. I never knew you guilty of it before.”
“Oh! I learned to whistle a long while ago.”
“Who taught you?”
“No one. I took it up by listening, and I had laid it down again. But lately, yesterday evening, as I was coming up our lane, I heard a gentleman whistling that very tune in the field on the other side of the hedge, and that reminded me.”
“What gentleman was it?”
“We have only one gentleman in this region, ma’am, and that is Mr. Moore — at least he is the only gentleman who is not gray-haired. My two venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine old beaus, infinitely better than any of the stupid young ones.”
Mrs. Pryor was silent.
“You do not like Mr. Helstone, ma’am?”
“My dear, Mr. Helstone’s office secures him from criticism.”
“You generally contrive to leave the room when he is announced.”
“Do you walk out this morning, my dear?”
“Yes, I shall go to the rectory, and seek and find Caroline Helstone, and make her take some exercise. She shall have a breezy walk over Nunnely Common.”
“If you go in that direction, my dear, have the goodness to remind Miss Helstone to wrap up well, as there is a fresh wind, and she appears to me to require care.”
“You shall be minutely obeyed, Mrs. Pryor. Meantime, will you not accompany us yourself?”
“No, my love; I should be a restraint upon you. I am stout, and cannot walk so quickly as you would wish to do.”
Shirley easily persuaded Caroline to go with her, and when they were fairly out on the quiet road, traversing the extensive and solitary sweep of Nunnely Common, she as easily drew her into conversation. The first feelings of diffidence overcome, Caroline soon felt glad to talk with Miss Keeldar. The very first interchange of slight observations sufficed to give each an idea of what the other was. Shirley said she liked the green sweep of the common turf, and, better still, the heath on its ridges, for the heath reminded her of moors. She had seen moors when she was travelling on the borders near Scotland. She remembered particularly a district traversed one long afternoon, on a sultry but sunless day in summer. They journeyed from noon till sunset, over what seemed a boundless waste of deep heath, and nothing had they seen but wild sheep, nothing heard but the cries of wild birds.
“I know how the heath would look on such a day,” said Caroline; “purple-black — a deeper shade of the sky-tint, and that would be livid.”
“Yes
, quite livid, with brassy edges to the clouds, and here and there a white gleam, more ghastly than the lurid tinge, which, as you looked at it, you momentarily expected would kindle into blinding lightning.”
“Did it thunder?”
“It muttered distant peals, but the storm did not break till evening, after we had reached our inn — that inn being an isolated house at the foot of a range of mountains.”
“Did you watch the clouds come down over the mountains?”
“I did. I stood at the window an hour watching them. The hills seemed rolled in a sullen mist, and when the rain fell in whitening sheets, suddenly they were blotted from the prospect; they were washed from the world.”
“I have seen such storms in hilly districts in Yorkshire; and at their riotous climax, while the sky was all cataract, the earth all flood, I have remembered the Deluge.”
“It is singularly reviving after such hurricanes to feel calm return, and from the opening clouds to receive a consolatory gleam, softly testifying that the sun is not quenched.”
“Miss Keeldar, just stand still now, and look down at Nunnely dale and wood.”
They both halted on the green brow of the common. They looked down on the deep valley robed in May raiment; on varied meads, some pearled with daisies, and some golden with king-cups. To-day all this young verdure smiled clear in sunlight; transparent emerald and amber gleams played over it. On Nunnwood — the sole remnant of antique British forest in a region whose lowlands were once all silvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep heather — slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a remote glimpse of heaven’s foundations. The air blowing on the brow was fresh, and sweet, and bracing.
“Our England is a bonny island,” said Shirley, “and Yorkshire is one of her bonniest nooks.”
“You are a Yorkshire girl too?”
“I am — Yorkshire in blood and birth. Five generations of my race sleep under the aisles of Briarfield Church. I drew my first breath in the old black hall behind us.”
Hereupon Caroline presented her hand, which was accordingly taken and shaken. “We are compatriots,” said she.
“Yes,” agreed Shirley, with a grave nod.
“And that,” asked Miss Keeldar, pointing to the forest — “that is Nunnwood?”
“It is.”
“Were you ever there?”
“Many a time.”
“In the heart of it?”
“Yes.”
“What is it like?”
“It is like an encampment of forest sons of Anak. The trees are huge and old. When you stand at their roots, the summits seem in another region. The trunks remain still and firm as pillars, while the boughs sway to every breeze. In the deepest calm their leaves are never quite hushed, and in high wind a flood rushes, a sea thunders above you.”
“Was it not one of Robin Hood’s haunts?”
“Yes, and there are mementos of him still existing. To penetrate into Nunnwood, Miss Keeldar, is to go far back into the dim days of old. Can you see a break in the forest, about the centre?”
“Yes, distinctly.”
“That break is a dell — a deep, hollow cup, lined with turf as green and short as the sod of this common. The very oldest of the trees, gnarled mighty oaks, crowd about the brink of this dell. In the bottom lie the ruins of a nunnery.”
“We will go — you and I alone, Caroline — to that wood, early some fine summer morning, and spend a long day there. We can take pencils and sketch-books, and any interesting reading book we like; and of course we shall take something to eat. I have two little baskets, in which Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper, might pack our provisions, and we could each carry our own. It would not tire you too much to walk so far?”
“Oh no; especially if we rested the whole day in the wood. And I know all the pleasantest spots. I know where we could get nuts in nutting time; I know where wild strawberries abound; I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded, some a sober gray, some gem-green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect, picture-like effects — rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated; and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you.”
“You would be dull with me alone?”
“I should not. I think we should suit; and what third person is there whose presence would not spoil our pleasure?”
“Indeed, I know of none about our own ages — no lady at least; and as to gentlemen — — “
“An excursion becomes quite a different thing when there are gentlemen of the party,” interrupted Caroline.
“I agree with you — quite a different thing to what we were proposing.”
“We were going simply to see the old trees, the old ruins; to pass a day in old times, surrounded by olden silence, and above all by quietude.”
“You are right; and the presence of gentlemen dispels the last charm, I think. If they are of the wrong sort, like your Malones, and your young Sykes, and Wynnes, irritation takes the place of serenity. If they are of the right sort, there is still a change; I can hardly tell what change — one easy to feel, difficult to describe.”
“We forget Nature, imprimis.”
“And then Nature forgets us, covers her vast calm brow with a dim veil, conceals her face, and withdraws the peaceful joy with which, if we had been content to worship her only, she would have filled our hearts.”
“What does she give us instead?”
“More elation and more anxiety; an excitement that steals the hours away fast, and a trouble that ruffles their course.”
“Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe,” remarked Caroline sagely. “I have gone to Nunnwood with a large party — all the curates and some other gentry of these parts, together with sundry ladies — and I found the affair insufferably tedious and absurd; and I have gone quite alone, or accompanied but by Fanny, who sat in the woodman’s hut and sewed, or talked to the goodwife, while I roamed about and made sketches, or read; and I have enjoyed much happiness of a quiet kind all day long. But that was when I was young — two years ago.”
“Did you ever go with your cousin, Robert Moore?”
“Yes; once.”
“What sort of a companion is he on these occasions?”
“A cousin, you know, is different to a stranger.”
“I am aware of that; but cousins, if they are stupid, are still more insupportable than strangers, because you cannot so easily keep them at a distance. But your cousin is not stupid?”
“No; but — — “
“Well?”
“If the company of fools irritates, as you say, the society of clever men leaves its own peculiar pain also. Where the goodness or talent of your friend is beyond and above all doubt, your own worthiness to be his associate often becomes a matter of question.”
“Oh! there I cannot follow you. That crotchet is not one I should choose to entertain for an instant. I consider myself not unworthy to be the associate of the best of them — of gentlemen, I mean — though that is saying a great deal. Where they are good, they are very good, I believe. Your uncle, by-the-bye, is not a bad specimen of the elderly gentleman. I am always glad to see his brown, keen, sensible old face, either in my own house or any other. Are you fond of him? Is he kind to you? Now, speak the truth.”
“He has brought me up from childhood, I doubt not, precisely as he would have brought up his own daughter, if he had had one; and that is kindness. But I am not fond of him. I would rather be out of his presence than in it.”
“Strange, when he has the art of making himself so agreeable.”
“Yes, in company; but he is stern and silent at home. As he puts aw
ay his cane and shovel-hat in the rectory hall, so he locks his liveliness in his bookcase and study-desk: the knitted brow and brief word for the fireside; the smile, the jest, the witty sally for society.”
“Is he tyrannical?”
“Not in the least. He is neither tyrannical nor hypocritical. He is simply a man who is rather liberal than good-natured, rather brilliant than genial, rather scrupulously equitable than truly just — if you can understand such superfine distinctions.”
“Oh yes! Good-nature implies indulgence, which he has not; geniality, warmth of heart, which he does not own; and genuine justice is the offspring of sympathy and considerateness, of which, I can well conceive, my bronzed old friend is quite innocent.”
The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë Page 82