“‘Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your penniless and friendless young orphan girl, when you find her.’
“‘Oh could I find her such as I image her! Something to tame first, and teach afterwards; to break in, and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over and then to be indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes his father. Oh’ (I went on), ‘my orphan girl would give me many a kiss; she would watch on the threshold for my coming home of an evening; she would run into my arms; she would keep my hearth as bright as she would make it warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her I must.’
“Her eyes emitted an eager flash, her lips opened; but she reclosed them, and impetuously turned away.
“‘Tell me, tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar!’
“Another movement, all haughtiness and fire and impulse.
“‘I must know. You can tell me; you shall tell me.’
“‘I never will.’
“She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part as she had always parted from me? No. I had gone too far not to finish; I had come too near the end not to drive home to it. All the encumbrance of doubt, all the rubbish of indecision, must be removed at once, and the plain truth must be ascertained. She must take her part, and tell me what it was; I must take mine and adhere to it.
“‘A minute, madam,’ I said, keeping my hand on the door-handle before I opened it. ‘We have had a long conversation this morning, but the last word has not been spoken yet. It is yours to speak it.’
“‘May I pass?’
“‘No; I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me just now, without speaking the word I demand.’
“‘What dare you expect me to say?’
“‘What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I must and will hear; what you dare not now suppress.’
“‘Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You are not like yourself.’
“I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her — that I could see. It was right: she must be scared to be won.
“‘You do know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you myself. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the man. And remember, he is a gentleman.’
“She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the lock. She might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal welded to metal. She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled.
“What change I underwent I cannot explain, but out of her emotion passed into me a new spirit. I neither was crushed nor elated by her lands and gold; I thought not of them, cared not for them. They were nothing — dross that could not dismay me. I saw only herself — her young beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her girlhood.
“‘My pupil,’ I said.
“‘My master,’ was the low answer.
“‘I have a thing to tell you.’
“She waited with declined brow and ringlets drooped.
“‘I have to tell you that for four years you have been growing into your tutor’s heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare that you have bewitched me, in spite of sense, and experience, and difference of station and estate. You have so looked, and spoken, and moved; so shown me your faults and your virtues — beauties rather, they are hardly so stern as virtues — that I love you — love you with my life and strength. It is out now.’
“She sought what to say, but could not find a word. She tried to rally, but vainly. I passionately repeated that I loved her.
“‘Well, Mr. Moore, what then?’ was the answer I got, uttered in a tone that would have been petulant if it had not faltered.
“‘Have you nothing to say to me? Have you no love for me?’
“‘A little bit.’
“‘I am not to be tortured. I will not even play at present.’
“‘I don’t want to play; I want to go.’
“‘I wonder you dare speak of going at this moment. You go! What! with my heart in your hand, to lay it on your toilet and pierce it with your pins? From my presence you do not stir, out of my reach you do not stray, till I receive a hostage — pledge for pledge — your heart for mine.’
“‘The thing you want is mislaid — lost some time since. Let me go and seek it.’
“‘Declare that it is where your keys often are — in my possession.’
“‘You ought to know. And where are my keys, Mr. Moore? Indeed and truly I have lost them again; and Mrs. Gill wants some money, and I have none, except this sixpence.’
“She took the coin out of her apron pocket, and showed it in her palm. I could have trifled with her, but it would not do; life and death were at stake. Mastering at once the sixpence and the hand that held it, I demanded, ‘Am I to die without you, or am I to live for you?’
“‘Do as you please. Far be it from me to dictate your choice.’
“‘You shall tell me with your own lips whether you doom me to exile or call me to hope.’
“‘Go; I can bear to be left.’
“‘Perhaps I too can bear to leave you. But reply, Shirley, my pupil, my sovereign — reply.’
“‘Die without me if you will; live for me if you dare.’
“‘I am not afraid of you, my leopardess. I dare live for and with you, from this hour till my death. Now, then, I have you. You are mine. I will never let you go. Wherever my home be, I have chosen my wife. If I stay in England, in England you will stay; if I cross the Atlantic, you will cross it also. Our lives are riveted, our lots intertwined.’
“‘And are we equal, then, sir? are we equal at last?’
“‘You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I.’
“‘Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?’
“‘Will you let me breathe, and not bewilder me? You must not smile at present. The world swims and changes round me. The sun is a dizzying scarlet blaze, the sky a violet vortex whirling over me.’
“I am a strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All creation was exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion more rapid, life itself more vital. I hardly saw her for a moment, but I heard her voice — pitilessly sweet. She would not subdue one of her charms in compassion. Perhaps she did not know what I felt.
“‘You name me leopardess. Remember, the leopardess is tameless,’ said she.
“‘Tame or fierce, wild or subdued, you are mine.’
“‘I am glad I know my keeper and am used to him. Only his voice will I follow; only his hand shall manage me; only at his feet will I repose.’
“I took her back to her seat, and sat down by her side. I wanted to hear her speak again. I could never have enough of her voice and her words.
“‘How much do you love me?’ I asked.
“‘Ah! you know. I will not gratify you — I will not flatter.’
“‘I don’t know half enough; my heart craves to be fed. If you knew how hungry and ferocious it is, you would hasten to stay it with a kind word or two.’
“‘Poor Tartar!’ said she, touching and patting my hand — ‘poor fellow, stalwart friend, Shirley’s pet and favourite, lie down!’
“‘But I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet word.’
“And at last she gave it.
“‘Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I don’t care for life unless I may pass it at your side.’
“‘Something more.’
“She gave me a change; it was not her way to offer the same dish twice.
“‘Sir,’ she said, starting up, ‘at your peril you ever again name such sordid things as money, or poverty,
or inequality. It will be absolutely dangerous to torment me with these maddening scruples. I defy you to do it.’
“My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not so poor or she were not so rich. She saw the transient misery; and then, indeed, she caressed me. Blent with torment, I experienced rapture.
“‘Mr. Moore,’ said she, looking up with a sweet, open, earnest countenance, ‘teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property, but I ask you to share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. Your judgment is well balanced, your heart is kind, your principles are sound. I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe you are conscientious. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!’
“‘So help me God, I will!’”
Yet again a passage from the blank book if you like, reader; if you don’t like it, pass it over: —
“The Sympsons are gone, but not before discovery and explanation. My manner must have betrayed something, or my looks. I was quiet, but I forgot to be guarded sometimes. I stayed longer in the room than usual; I could not bear to be out of her presence; I returned to it, and basked in it, like Tartar in the sun. If she left the oak parlour, instinctively I rose and left it too. She chid me for this procedure more than once. I did it with a vague, blundering idea of getting a word with her in the hall 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 co
wardice 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.”
The Complete Novels of Charlotte Brontë Page 127