“It is a strange and an extraordinary thing — a very singular — a most odd thing! I thought all was right, knew no other; and there — the family are gone!”
“I suppose, sir, they had a right to go.”
“Sir Philip is gone! ” (with emphasis).
Shirley raised her brows. “Bon voyage! ” said she.
“This will not do; this must be altered, ma’am.”
He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed, and perfectly helpless.
“Come, come now, uncle,” expostulated Shirley, “do not begin to fret and fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to know. I am as willing to come to an explanation as you. I promise you truthful replies.”
“I want — I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you an offer?”
“He has.”
“You avow it?”
“I avow it. But now, go on. Consider that point settled.”
“He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory?”
“It is enough to say that he made it. Go on.”
“He proposed in the recess — in the room that used to be a picture-gallery — that Sir Monckton converted into it saloon?”
No answer.
“You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all. My sagacity was not at fault — it never is. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what subject — of what nature were the contents?”
“No matter.”
“Ma’am, is that the way in which you speak to me?”
Shirley’s foot tapped quick on the carpet.
“There you sit, silent and sullen — you who promised truthful replies.”
“Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed.”
“I should like to see that letter.”
“You cannot see it.”
“I must and shall, ma’am; I am your guardian.”
“Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian.”
“Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter — — “
“Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both remain cool. For my part, I do not wish to get into a passion; but, you know, once drive me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I say — I am not then soon checked. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know next?”
“I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I will.”
“Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him.”
“Refused him! You — you, Shirley Keeldar, refused Sir Philip Nunnely?”
“I did.”
The poor gentleman bounced from his chair, and first rushed and then trotted through the room.
“There it is! There it is! There it is!”
“Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so disappointed.”
Concession, contrition, never do any good with some people. Instead of softening and conciliating, they but embolden and harden them. Of that number was Mr. Sympson.
“I disappointed? What is it to me? Have I an interest in it? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?”
“Most people have motives of some sort for their actions.”
“She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a parent to her, she charges with bad motives!”
“Bad motives I did not say.”
“And now you prevaricate; you have no principles!”
“Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away.”
“Go you shall not! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss Keeldar?”
“In what respect?”
“In respect of matrimony?”
“To be quiet, and to do just as I please.”
“Just as you please! The words are to the last degree indecorous.”
“Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not bear that.”
“You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have imbibed French principles.”
“The ground you are treading now returns a mighty hollow sound under your feet. Beware!”
“It will end in infamy, sooner or later. I have foreseen it all along.”
“Do you assert, sir, that something in which I am concerned will end in infamy?”
“That it will — that it will. You said just now you would act as you please. You acknowledge no rules — no limitations.”
“Silly stuff, and vulgar as silly!”
“Regardless of decorum, you are prepared to fly in the face of propriety.”
“You tire me, uncle.”
“What, madam — what could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?”
“At last there is another sensible question; I shall be glad to reply to it. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his relations — his mother especially — would be annoyed if he married me. Such a step would embroil him with them. I am not his equal in the world’s estimation.”
“Is that all?”
“Our dispositions are not compatible.”
“Why, a more amiable gentleman never breathed.”
“He is very amiable — very excellent — truly estimable; but not my master — not in one point. I could not trust myself with his happiness. I would not undertake the keeping of it for thousands. I will accept no hand which cannot hold me in check.”
“I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent.”
“When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction that I can keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me. He would expect me always to rule — to guide — and I have no taste whatever for the office.”
“You no taste for swaggering, and subduing, and ordering, and ruling?”
“Not my husband; only my uncle.”
“Where is the difference?”
“There is a slight difference — that is certain. And I know full well any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must be able to control me.”
“I wish you had a real tyrant.”
“A tyrant would not hold me for a day, not for an hour. I would rebel — break from him — defy him.”
“Are you not enough to bewilder one’s brain with your self-contradiction?”
“It is evident I bewilder your brain.”
“You talk of Sir Philip being young. He is two-and-twenty.”
“My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty.”
“You had better pick out some old man — some white-headed or bald-headed swain.”
“No, thank you.”
“You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him to your apron.”
“I might do that with a boy; but it is not my vocation. Did I not say I prefer a master — one in whose presence I shall feel obliged and disposed to be good; one whose control my impatient temper must acknowledge; a man whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very possible to fear?”
“What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is a baronet — a man of rank, property, connections far above yours. If you talk of intellect, he is a poet — he writes verses; which you, I take it, cannot do, with all your cleverness.”
“Neither his title, wealth, pedigree, nor poetry avail to invest him with the power I describe. These are feather-weights; they want ballast. A measure of sound, solid, practical sense would have stood him in better stead with me.”
“You and Henry rave about poetry! You used to catch fire like tinder on the subject when you were a girl.”
“O uncle, there is nothing really valuable in this world, there is nothing glorious in the world to come that is not poetry!”
“Marry a poet, then, in God’s name!”
“Show him me, and I will.”
“Sir Philip.”
“Not at all. You are a
lmost as good a poet as he.”
“Madam, you are wandering from the point.”
“Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so, and I shall be glad to lead you away with me. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not worth while.”
“Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of temper.”
“I am not, yet.”
“If you mean to insinuate that I am, I consider that you are guilty of impertinence.”
“You will be soon, if you go on at that rate.”
“There it is! With your pert tongue you would try the patience of a Job.”
“I know I should.”
“No levity, miss! This is not a laughing matter. It is an affair I am resolved to probe thoroughly, convinced that there is mischief at the bottom. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did you paint from the life?”
Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed rose-red.
“I shall have an answer to that question,” affirmed Mr. Sympson, assuming vast courage and consequence on the strength of this symptom of confusion.
“It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals.”
“Several originals! Bless my heart!”
“I have been in love several times.”
“This is cynical.”
“With heroes of many nations.”
“What next — — “
“And philosophers.”
“She is mad — — “
“Don’t ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt.”
“Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!”
“Once I loved Socrates.”
“Pooh! no trifling, ma’am.”
“I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas.”
“Miss Keeldar — — “
“To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the actual present — — “
“Ah! the actual present.”
“To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities.”
“Realities! That is the test to which you shall be brought, ma’am.”
“To avow before what altar I now kneel — to reveal the present idol of my soul — — “
“You will make haste about it, if you please. It is near luncheon time, and confess you shall.”
“Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I only wish you were Mr. Helstone instead of Mr. Sympson; you would sympathize with me better.”
“Madam, it is a question of common sense and common prudence, not of sympathy and sentiment, and so on. Did you say it was Mr. Helstone?”
“Not precisely, but as near as may be; they are rather alike.”
“I will know the name; I will have particulars.”
“They positively are rather alike. Their very faces are not dissimilar — a pair of human falcons — and dry, direct, decided both. But my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows.”
“Rant and fustian!”
“I dare say he can be harsh as a saw-edge and gruff as a hungry raven.”
“Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Answer me that.”
“Uncle, I am going to tell you; his name is trembling on my tongue.”
“Speak, girl!”
“That was well said, uncle. ‘Speak, girl!’ It is quite tragic. England has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar exultingly over him. He has been unscared by the howl, and he will be unelated by the shout.”
“I said she was mad. She is.”
“This country will change and change again in her demeanour to him; he will never change in his duty to her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I’ll tell you his name.”
“You shall tell me, or — — “
“Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington.”
Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat.
“Ma’am, you shall tell me this. Will your principles permit you to marry a man without money — a man below you?”
“Never a man below me.”
(In a high voice.) “Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man?”
“What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?”
“I insist upon knowing.”
“You don’t go the way to know.”
“My family respectability shall not be compromised.”
“A good resolution; keep it.”
“Madam, it is you who shall keep it.”
“Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family.”
“Do you disown us?”
“I disdain your dictatorship.”
“Whom will you marry, Miss Keeldar?”
“Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because I only esteem him.”
“Whom have you in your eye?”
“Four rejected candidates.”
“Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence.”
“What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil. Improper influence! What old woman’s cackle is that?”
“Are you a young lady?”
“I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated.”
“Do you know” (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly solemnity) — “do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?”
“Does it?”
“It does. Your name is in every mouth.”
“It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it may purify them.”
“Is it that person who has power to influence you?”
“Beyond any whose cause you have advocated.”
“Is it he you will marry?”
“He is handsome, and manly, and commanding.”
“You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave! the low trader!”
“He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince is on his brow, and ruler in his bearing.”
“She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame, no fear!”
“When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage.”
“I say she is mad.”
“You have taunted me till my blood is up; you have worried me till I turn again.”
“That Moore is the brother of my son’s tutor. Would you let the usher call you sister?”
Bright and broad shone Shirley’s eye as she fixed it on her questioner now.
“No, no; not for a province of possession, not for a century of life.”
“You cannot separate the husband from his family.”
“What then?”
“Mr. Louis Moore’s sister you will be.”
“Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your aims are not my aims, your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same tongue. Let us part.”
“It is not,” she resumed, much excited — “it is not that I hate you; you are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we cannot suit; we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and keep me passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off. Mr. Sympson, go, offer them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I’ll none of them. I wash my hands of the lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than you.”
The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë Page 119