Shirley

In Caroline Miss Keeldar had first taken an interest because she was quiet, retiring, looked delicate, and seemed as if she needed someone to take care of her. Her predilection increased greatly when she discovered that her own way of thinking and talking was understood and responded to by this new acquaintance. She had hardly expected it. Miss Helstone, she fancied, had too pretty a face, manners and voice too soft, to be anything out of the common way in mind and attainments; and she very much wondered to see the gentle features light up archly to the reveille of a dry sally or two risked by herself; and more did she wonder to discover the self-won knowledge treasured, and the untaught speculations working in that girlish, curl-veiled head. Caroline’s instinct of taste, too, was like her own. Such books as Miss Keeldar had read with the most pleasure were Miss Helstone’s delight also. They held many aversions too in common, and could have the comfort of laughing together over works of false sentimentality and pompous pretension.

Few, Shirley conceived, men or women have the right taste in poetry, the right sense for discriminating between what is real and what is false. She had again and again heard very clever people pronounce this or that passage, in this or that versifier, altogether admirable, which, when she read, her soul refused to acknowledge as anything but cant, flourish, and tinsel, or at the best elaborate wordiness, curious, clever, learned, perhaps, haply even tinged with the fascinating hues of fancy, but, God knows, as different from real poetry as the gorgeous and massy vase of mosaic is from the little cup of pure metal; or, to give the reader a choice of similes, as the milliner’s artificial wreath is from the fresh-gathered lily of the field.

Caroline, she found, felt the value of the true ore, and knew the deception of the flashy dross. The minds of the two girls being toned in harmony often chimed very sweetly together.

One evening they chanced to be alone in the oak-parlour. They had passed a long wet day together without ennui. It was now on the edge of dark; candles were not yet brought in; both, as twilight deepened, grew meditative and silent. A western wind roared high round the hall, driving wild clouds and stormy rain up from the far-remote ocean; all was tempest outside the antique lattices, all deep peace within. Shirley sat at the window, watching the rack in heaven, the mist on earth, listening to certain notes of the gale that plained like restless spirits – notes which, had she not been so young, gay, and healthy, would have swept her trembling nerves like some omen, some anticipatory dirge. In this her prime of existence and bloom of beauty they but subdued vivacity to pensiveness. Snatches of sweet ballads haunted her ear; now and then she sang a stanza. Her accents obeyed the fitful impulse of the wind; they swelled as its gusts rushed on, and died as they wandered away. Caroline, withdrawn to the farthest and darkest end of the room, her figure just discernible by the ruby shine of the flameless fire, was pacing to and fro, muttering to herself fragments of well-remembered poetry. She spoke very low, but Shirley heard her; and while singing softly, she listened. This was the strain;

“Obscurest night involved the sky,The Atlantic billows roared,When such a destined wretch as I,Washed headlong from on board,Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,His floating home forever left.”

Here the fragment stopped, because Shirley’s song, erewhile somewhat full and thrilling, had become delicately faint.

“Go on,” said she.

“Then you go on too. I was only repeating The Castaway.”

“I know. If you can remember it all, say it all.”

And as it was nearly dark, and, after all, Miss Keeldar was no formidable auditor, Caroline went through it. She went through it as she should have gone through it. The wild sea, the drowning mariner, the reluctant ship swept on in the storm, you heard were realized by her; and more vividly was realized the heart of the poet, who did not weep for The Castaway, but who, in an hour of tearless anguish, traced a semblance to his own God-abandoned misery in the fate of that man-forsaken sailor, and cried from the depths where he struggled;

“No voice divine the storm allayed,No light propitious shone,When, snatched from all effectual aid,We perished – each alone!But I – beneath a rougher sea,And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.”

“I hope William Cowper is safe and calm in heaven now,” said Caroline.

“Do you pity what he suffered on earth?” asked Miss Keeldar.

“Pity him, Shirley? What can I do else? He was nearly broken-hearted when he wrote that poem, and it almost breaks one’s heart to read it. But he found relief in writing it – I know he did; and that gift of poetry – the most divine bestowed on man – was, I believe, granted to allay emotions when their strength threatens harm. It seems to me, Shirley, that nobody should write poetry to exhibit intellect or attainment. Who cares for that sort of poetry? Who cares for learning – who cares for fine words in poetry? And who does not care for feeling – real feeling – however simply, even rudely expressed?”

“It seems you care for it, at all events; and certainly, in hearing that poem, one discovers that Cowper was under an impulse strong as that of the wind which drove the ship – an impulse which, while it would not suffer him to stop to add ornament to a single stanza, filled him with force to achieve the whole with consummate perfection. You managed to recite it with a steady voice, Caroline. I wonder thereat.”

“Cowper’s hand did not tremble in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the manuscript of ‘The Castaway.’ I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from his heart, that he wept abundantly, and was comforted.”

Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked ere long, “One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of having the privilege of comforting him.”

“You never would have loved Cowper,” rejoined Caroline promptly. “He was not made to be loved by woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in the world – and very noble, elevated natures too – whom love never comes near. You might have sought Cowper with the intention of loving him, and you would have looked at him, pitied him, and left him, forced away by a sense of the impossible, the incongruous, as the crew were borne from their drowning comrade by ‘the furious blast.’”

“You may be right. Who told you this?”

“And what I say of Cowper, I should say of Rousseau. Was Rousseau ever loved? He loved passionately; but was his passion ever returned? I am certain, never. And if there were any female Cowpers and Rousseaus, I should assert the same of them.”

“Who told you this, I ask? Did Moore?”

“Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an instinct? Can I not divine by analogy? Moore never talked to me either about Cowper, or Rousseau, or love. The voice we hear in solitude told me all I know on these subjects.”

“Do you like characters of the Rousseau order, Caroline?”

“Not at all, as a whole. I sympathize intensely with certain qualities they possess. Certain divine sparks in their nature dazzle my eyes, and make my soul glow. Then, again, I scorn them. They are made of clay and gold. The refuse and the ore make a mass of weakness: taken altogether, I feel them unnatural, unhealthy, repulsive.”

“I dare say I should be more tolerant of a Rousseau than you would, Cary. Submissive and contemplative yourself, you like the stern and the practical. By the way, you must miss that Cousin Robert of yours very much, now that you and he never meet.”

“I do.”

“And he must miss you?”

“That he does not.”

“I cannot imagine,” pursued Shirley, who had lately got a habit of introducing Moore’s name into the conversation, even when it seemed to have no business there—“I cannot imagine but that he was fond of you, since he took so much notice of you, talked to you, and taught you so much.”

“He never was fond of me; he never professed to be fond of me. He took pains to prove that he only just tolerated me.”

Caroline, determined not to err on the flattering side in estimating her cousin’s regard for her, always now habitually thought of it and mentioned it in the most scanty measure. She had her own reasons for being less sanguine than ever in hopeful views of the future, less indulgent to pleasurable retrospections of the past.

“Of course, then,” observed Miss Keeldar, “you only just tolerated him in return?”

“Shirley, men and women are so different; they are in such a different position. Women have so few things to think about, men so many. You may have a friendship for a man, while he is almost indifferent to you. Much of what cheers your life may be dependent on him, while not a feeling or interest of moment in his eyes may have reference to you. Robert used to be in the habit of going to London, sometimes for a week or a fortnight together. Well, while he was away, I found his absence a void. There was something wanting; Briarfield was duller. Of course, I had my usual occupations; still I missed him. As I sat by myself in the evenings, I used to feel a strange certainty of conviction I cannot describe, that if a magician or a genius had, at that moment, offered me Prince Ali’s tube (you remember it in the Arabian Nights?), and if, with its aid, I had been enabled to take a view of Robert – to see where he was, how occupied – I should have learned, in a startling manner, the width of the chasm which gaped between such as he and such as I. I knew that, however my thoughts might adhere to him, his were effectually sundered from me.”

“Caroline,” demanded Miss Keeldar abruptly, “don’t you wish you had a profession – a trade?”

“I wish it fifty times a day. As it is, I often wonder what I came into the world for. I long to have something absorbing and compulsory to fill my head and hands and to occupy my thoughts.”

“Can labour alone make a human being happy?”

“No; but it can give varieties of pain, and prevent us from breaking our hearts with a single tyrant master-torture. Besides, successful labour has its recompense; a vacant, weary, lonely, hopeless life has none.”

“But hard labour and learned professions, they say, make women masculine, coarse, unwomanly.”

“And what does it signify whether unmarried and never-to-be-married women are unattractive and inelegant or not? Provided only they are decent, decorous, and neat, it is enough. The utmost which ought to be required of old maids, in the way of appearance, is that they should not absolutely offend men’s eyes as they pass them in the street; for the rest, they should be allowed, without too much scorn, to be as absorbed, grave, plain-looking, and plain-dressed as they please.”

“You might be an old maid yourself, Caroline, you speak so earnestly.”

“I shall be one. It is my destiny. I will never marry a Malone or a Sykes; and no one else will ever marry me.”

Here fell a long pause. Shirley broke it. Again the name by which she seemed bewitched was almost the first on her lips.

“Lina – did not Moore call you Lina sometimes?”

“Yes. It is sometimes used as the abbreviation of Caroline in his native country.”

“Well, Lina, do you remember my one day noticing an inequality in your hair – a curl wanting on that right side – and your telling me that it was Robert’s fault, as he had once cut therefrom a long lock?”

“Yes.”

“If he is, and always was, as indifferent to you as you say, why did he steal your hair?”

“I don’t know – yes, I do. It was my doing, not his. Everything of that sort always was my doing. He was going from home – to London, as usual; and the night before he went, I had found in his sister’s workbox a lock of black hair – a short, round curl. Hortense told me it was her brother’s, and a keepsake. He was sitting near the table. I looked at his head. He has plenty of hair; on the temples were many such round curls. I thought he could spare me one. I knew I should like to have it, and I asked for it. He said, on condition that he might have his choice of a tress from my head. So he got one of my long locks of hair, and I got one of his short ones. I keep his, but I dare say he has lost mine. It was my doing, and one of those silly deeds it distresses the heart and sets the face on fire to think of; one of those small but sharp recollections that return, lacerating your self-respect like tiny penknives, and forcing from your lips, as you sit alone, sudden, insane-sounding interjections.”

“Caroline!”

“I do think myself a fool, Shirley, in some respects; I do despise myself. But I said I would not make you my confessor, for you cannot reciprocate foible for foible; you are not weak. How steadily you watch me now! Turn aside your clear, strong, she-eagle eye; it is an insult to fix it on me thus.”

“What a study of character you are – weak, certainly, but not in the sense you think! – Come in!”

This was said in answer to a tap at the door. Miss Keeldar happened to be near it at the moment, Caroline at the other end of the room. She saw a note put into Shirley’s hands, and heard the words, “From Mr. Moore, ma’am.”

“Bring candles,” said Miss Keeldar.

Caroline sat expectant.

“A communication on business,” said the heiress; but when candles were brought, she neither opened nor read it. The rector’s Fanny was presently announced, and the rector’s niece went home.

Chapter XIII

Further Communications on Business

In Shirley’s nature prevailed at times an easy indolence. There were periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy of hand and eye – moments when her thoughts, her simple existence, the fact of the world being around and heaven above her, seemed to yield her such fullness of happiness that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy. Often, after an active morning, she would spend a sunny afternoon in lying stirless on the turf, at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage. No society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were within call; no spectacle did she ask but that of the deep blue sky, and such cloudlets as sailed afar and aloft across its span; no sound but that of the bee’s hum, the leaf’s whisper. Her sole book in such hours was the dim chronicle of memory or the sibyl page of anticipation. From her young eyes fell on each volume a glorious light to read by; round her lips at moments played a smile which revealed glimpses of the tale or prophecy. It was not sad, not dark. Fate had been benign to the blissful dreamer, and promised to favour her yet again. In her past were sweet passages, in her future rosy hopes.

Yet one day when Caroline drew near to rouse her, thinking she had lain long enough, behold, as she looked down, Shirley’s cheek was wet as if with dew; those fine eyes of hers shone humid and brimming.

“Shirley, why do you cry?” asked Caroline, involuntarily laying stress on you.

Miss Keeldar smiled, and turned her picturesque head towards the questioner. “Because it pleases me mightily to cry,” she said. “My heart is both sad and glad. But why, you good, patient child – why do you not bear me company? I only weep tears, delightful and soon wiped away; you might weep gall, if you choose.”

“Why should I weep gall?”

“Mateless, solitary bird!” was the only answer.

“And are not you too mateless, Shirley?”

“At heart – no.”

“Oh! who nestles there, Shirley?”

But Shirley only laughed gaily at this question, and alertly started up.

“I have dreamed,” she said, “a mere daydream – certainly bright, probably baseless!”

Miss Helstone was by this time free enough from illusions: she took a sufficiently grave view of the future, and fancied she knew pretty well how her own destiny and that of some others were tending. Yet old associations retained their influence over her, and it was these and the power of habit which still frequently drew her of an evening to the field-style and the old thorn overlooking the Hollow.

One night, the night after the incident of the note, she had been at her usual post, watching for her beacon – watching vainly: that evening no lamp was lit. She waited till the rising of certain constellations warned her of lateness and signed her away. In passing Fieldhead, on her return, its moonlight beauty attracted her glance, and stayed her step an instant. Tree and hall rose peaceful under the night sky and clear full orb; pearly paleness gilded the building; mellow brown gloom bosomed it round; shadows of deep green brooded above its oak-wreathed roof. The broad pavement in front shone pale also; it gleamed as if some spell had transformed the dark granite to glistering Parian. On the silvery space slept two sable shadows, thrown sharply defined from two human figures. These figures when first seen were motionless and mute; presently they moved in harmonious step, and spoke low in harmonious key. Earnest was the gaze that scrutinized them as they emerged from behind the trunk of the cedar. “Is it Mrs. Pryor and Shirley?”

Certainly it is Shirley. Who else has a shape so lithe, and proud, and graceful? And her face, too, is visible – her countenance careless and pensive, and musing and mirthful, and mocking and tender. Not fearing the dew, she has not covered her head; her curls are free – they veil her neck and caress her shoulder with their tendril rings. An ornament of gold gleams through the half-closed folds of the scarf she has wrapped across her bust, and a large bright gem glitters on the white hand which confines it. Yes, that is Shirley.

Her companion then is, of course, Mrs. Pryor?

Yes, if Mrs. Pryor owns six feet of stature, and if she has changed her decent widow’s weeds for masculine disguise. The figure walking at Miss Keeldar’s side is a man – a tall, young, stately man; it is her tenant, Robert Moore.

The pair speak softly; their words are not distinguishable. To remain a moment to gaze is not to be an eavesdropper; and as the moon shines so clearly and their countenances are so distinctly apparent, who can resist the attraction of such interest? Caroline, it seems, cannot, for she lingers.

There was a time when, on summer nights, Moore had been wont to walk with his cousin, as he was now walking with the heiress. Often had she gone up the Hollow with him after sunset, to scent the freshness of the earth, where a growth of fragrant herbage carpeted a certain narrow terrace, edging a deep ravine, from whose rifted gloom was heard a sound like the spirit of the lonely watercourse, moaning amongst its wet stones, and between its weedy banks, and under its dark bower of alders.

“But I used to be closer to him,” thought Caroline. “He felt no obligation to treat me with homage; I needed only kindness. He used to hold my hand; he does not touch hers. And yet Shirley is not proud where she loves. There is no haughtiness in her aspect now, only a little in her port – what is natural to and inseparable from her, what she retains in her most careless as in her most guarded moments. Robert must think, as I think, that he is at this instant looking down on a fine face; and he must think it with a man’s brain, not with mine. She has such generous yet soft fire in her eyes. She smiles – what makes her smile so sweet? I saw that Robert felt its beauty, and he must have felt it with his man’s heart, not with my dim woman’s perceptions. They look to me like two great happy spirits. Yonder silvered pavement reminds me of that white shore we believe to be beyond the death-flood. They have reached it; they walk there united. And what am I, standing here in shadow, shrinking into concealment, my mind darker than my hiding place? I am one of this world, no spirit – a poor doomed mortal, who asks, in ignorance and hopelessness, wherefore she was born, to what end she lives; whose mind forever runs on the question, how she shall at last encounter, and by whom be sustained through death.

“This is the worst passage I have come to yet; still I was quite prepared for it. I gave Robert up, and gave him up to Shirley, the first day I heard she was come, the first moment I saw her – rich, youthful, and lovely. She has him now. He is her lover. She is his darling. She will be far more his darling yet when they are married. The more Robert knows of Shirley the more his soul will cleave to her. They will both be happy, and I do not grudge them their bliss; but I groan under my own misery. Some of my suffering is very acute. Truly I ought not to have been born; they should have smothered me at the first cry.”

Here, Shirley stepping aside to gather a dewy flower, she and her companion turned into a path that lay nearer the gate. Some of their conversation became audible. Caroline would not stay to listen. She passed away noiselessly, and the moonlight kissed the wall which her shadow had dimmed. The reader is privileged to remain, and try what he can make of the discourse.

“I cannot conceive why nature did not give you a bulldog’s head, for you have all a bulldog’s tenacity,” said Shirley.

“Not a flattering idea. Am I so ignoble?”

“And something also you have of the same animal’s silent ways of going about its work. You give no warning; you come noiselessly behind, seize fast, and hold on.”

“This is guess-work. You have witnessed no such feat on my part. In your presence I have been no bulldog.”

“Your very silence indicates your race. How little you talk in general, yet how deeply you scheme! You are far-seeing; you are calculating.”

“I know the ways of these people. I have gathered information of their intentions. My note last night informed you that Barraclough’s trial had ended in his conviction and sentence to transportation. His associates will plot vengeance. I shall lay my plans so as to counteract or at least be prepared for theirs – that is all. Having now given you as clear an explanation as I can, am I to understand that for what I propose doing I have your approbation?”

“I shall stand by you so long as you remain on the defensive. Yes.”

“Good! Without any aid – even opposed or disapproved by you – I believe I should have acted precisely as I now intend to act, but in another spirit. I now feel satisfied. On the whole, I relish the position.”

“I dare say you do. That is evident. You relish the work which lies before you still better than you would relish the execution of a government order for army-cloth.”

“I certainly feel it congenial.”

“So would old Helstone. It is true there is a shade of difference in your motives – many shades, perhaps. Shall I speak to Mr. Helstone? I will, if you like.”

“Act as you please. Your judgment, Miss Keeldar, will guide you accurately. I could rely on it myself in a more difficult crisis. But I should inform you Mr. Helstone is somewhat prejudiced against me at present.”

“I am aware – I have heard all about your differences. Depend upon it, they will melt away. He cannot resist the temptation of an alliance under present circumstances.”

“I should be glad to have him; he is of true metal.”

“I think so also.”

“An old blade, and rusty somewhat, but the edge and temper still excellent.”

“Well, you shall have him, Mr. Moore – that is, if I can win him.”

“Whom can you not win?”

“Perhaps not the rector; but I will make the effort.”

“Effort! He will yield for a word – a smile.”

“By no means. It will cost me several cups of tea, some toast and cake, and an ample measure of remonstrances, expostulations, and persuasions. It grows rather chill.”

“I perceive you shiver. Am I acting wrongly to detain you here? Yet it is so calm – I even feel it warm – and society such as yours is a pleasure to me so rare. If you were wrapped in a thicker shawl.”

“I might stay longer, and forget how late it is, which would chagrin Mrs. Pryor. We keep early and regular hours at Fieldhead, Mr. Moore; and so, I am sure, does your sister at the cottage.”

“Yes; but Hortense and I have an understanding the most convenient in the world, that we shall each do as we please.”

“How do you please to do?”

“Three nights in the week I sleep in the mill – but I require little rest – and when it is moonlight and mild I often haunt the Hollow till daybreak.”