CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING.
Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, thatnever had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He wasdespotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps,romantic.
Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission wasclear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiouslydesired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match,give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her forever.
The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreedon the meaning of the words "suitable" and "proper." She never yet hadaccepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the mostimportant step of her life, she would consent to accept it.
The trial soon came.
Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.
"Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fineunencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. _It must bedone!_"
He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there withher alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimedher consent.
It was withheld.
"No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."
"I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthyof you."
She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab andcornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
"And _I_ ask in what sense that young man is worthy of _me_?"
"He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections,equal respectability."
"Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to lovehim."
"Please to state your objections."
"He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept thatas the first reason why I spurn him."
"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"
"That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. Hisintellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a secondstumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, histastes are coarse, his manners vulgar."
"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption onyour part."
"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!"
"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?"
"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."
"May I ask if you expect some man of title--some peer of the realm--todemand your hand?"
"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."
"Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Youreccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy."
"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it."
"I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! Idare you to sully our name by a _mesalliance_!"
"_Our_ name! Am _I_ called Sympson?"
"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not betrifled with!"
"What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or couldyou do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?"
"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembledalike.
"Why? What shadow of power have _you_ over me? Why should I fear you?"
"Take care, madam!"
"Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolvedto esteem--to admire--to _love_."
"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"
"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but Ifeel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not."
"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"
"On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable."
"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or--or----"
"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"
"Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist."
"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature andthe arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suitme. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads onlya sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"
"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted handsand eyes.
"Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."
"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that Imight compel her to hear reason?"
"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, youcould not _compel_ me to this step. _I_ will write to Mr. Wynne. Giveyourself no further trouble on the subject."
* * * * *
Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takesthe form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in thesame quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar--or her fortune--had by thistime made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression inquarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr.Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed onher by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst themwas more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well asample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom sheexpected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, andher uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed hisniece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportmentto her accordingly.
Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. Thesuave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view oftheir quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together intheir dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if theychanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I havesaid, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his familytranquillized.
The village of Nunnely has been alluded to--its old church, its forest,its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory--an older, alarger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; andwhat is more, it had its man of title--its baronet, which neitherBriarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession--its proudest andmost prized--had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, ayoung man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on hisYorkshire estate.
During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place ofCliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to SirPhilip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, thecliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of theplace. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending--too simpleto be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not _condescend_to their society; he seemed _glad_ of it.
With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cementan acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt,and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him becauseshe found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the powerto amuse him.
One slight drawback there was--where is the friendship without it?--SirPhilip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry--sonnets, stanzas, ballads.Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading andreciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessedmore accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, theinspiration more fire. At any rate, she always winced when he recurredto the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert theconversation into another channel.
He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, forthe sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest ofhis ballads. He would lead her away to sequestered rustic seats, whencethe rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and whenhe had her all to himself, and
the sea lay before them, and the scentedshade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rosebehind them, he would pull out his last batch of sonnets, and read themin a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that thoughthey might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley'sdowncast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt heartilymortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman.
Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanaticworship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects hewas sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics.He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but toohappy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied ofdescribing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the hoary churchand hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather histenantry about him in his ancestral halls.
Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter,and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory.
He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last.He said--when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood--that underno roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oakbeams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest dwellingenough compared with his own, but he liked it.
Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelledparlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find aquiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; hemust have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by thestill waters. _Tete-a-tete_ ramblings she shunned, so he made partiesfor her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoterscenes--woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire.
Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle'sprophetic soul anticipated a splendid future. He already scented thetime afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on hisright knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his"nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a madgirl," but a "most sensible woman." He termed her, in confidentialdialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; peculiar, butvery clever." He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverentlyto open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himselfheadaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and otherloose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. Hewould cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit overman's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake hehad committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personagenot a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any"midden-cock on pattens."
His niece viewed his manoeuvres and received his innuendoes with phlegm;apparently she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended.When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she saidshe believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She hadnever thought a man of rank--the only son of a proud, fond mother, theonly brother of doting sisters--could have so much goodness, and, on thewhole, so much sense.
Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found inher that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presencemore and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had becometo him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelingshovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties hauntedsome of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmatesamong the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense ofexpectancy that kept the nerves strained.
One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He wasamiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldarcould not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne,that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar.There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not avery discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentlemanin all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, ofcourse, far beyond her claims.
His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though notill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His featureswere plain and slight, his hair sandy, his stature insignificant. Butshe soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up ifany one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasingcountenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which wasbetter than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or theproportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for hisunfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no ironysave her own.
In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant anobservation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.
"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or amadman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his ownhands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in Londonfor weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himselfcheckmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, takenat the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returnsagain.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."
"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea wasnew to him.
"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, forshe liked him."
"As a neighbour?"
"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at themere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to comehome. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."
"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurerto aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous--contemptible?"
"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I'venaught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert iswilling to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival--a puling slip ofaristocracy--I am quite agreeable. At _his_ age, in _his_ place, with_his_ inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, norduke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without astruggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost likespeaking to a parson to consult with you."
* * * * *
Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she wasnot absolutely spoiled--that her better nature did not quite leave her.Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that ofMoore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivionof the absentee; but that she had not _quite_ forgotten him--that shestill regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest--seemed provedby the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a suddenattack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, towhom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of coolreserve and docile respect--now sweeping past him in all the dignity ofthe moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting himas abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors;bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if heencountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the graverebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power toinflict penalties in case of contumacy.
Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid himlow, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lamepupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any ratehe sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance fora day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.
He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quithim, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap--too light to be that ofMrs. Gill or the housemaid--summoned young Sympson to the door.
"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery.
"Come in and see him yourself."
"Is he asleep?"
"
I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."
"He would not like it."
But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on thethreshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.
The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet itrevealed her in elegant attire. There was a party assembled below,including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room,and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her purewhite dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of goldcircling her throat and quivering on her breast, glistened strangelyamid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive.She spoke gently.
"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"
"I have not been very ill, and am now better."
"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes;can you taste one?"
"No; but I thank you for remembering me."
"Just one."
From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand shesevered a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, andturned aside his flushed face.
"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit;yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?"
"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best."
Silence fell for some minutes.
"Do you suffer?--have you pain?"
"Very little."
"What made you ill?"
Silence.
"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?"
"Miasma, perhaps--malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers."
"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, withMr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise."
"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enterthis chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness isinfectious. I scarcely fear"--with a sort of smile--"_you_ will take it;but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."
"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for youbefore I depart--any little service----"
"They will miss you below."
"No; the gentlemen are still at table."
"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and Ihear him just now pass from the dining-room to the drawing-room."
"It is a servant."
"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."
"Your hearing is acute."
"It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at present. Sir Philipwas here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which hehad brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleveno'clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star."
"You must be nervously sensitive."
"I heard him kiss your hand."
"Impossible!"
"No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door;the sash was a little raised, for I felt feverish. You stood ten minuteswith him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word, and I heardthe salute.--Henry, give me some water."
"Let me give it him."
But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined herattendance.
"And can I do nothing?"
"Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it isall I at present want."
"You do not sleep well?"
"Sleep has left me."
"Yet you said you were not very ill?"
"I am often sleepless when in high health."
"If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid slumber--quite deepand hushed, without a dream."
"Blank annihilation! I do not ask that."
"With dreams of all you most desire."
"Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death."
"Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary."
"Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps,quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be."
"That is possible. But this sleep--I _should_ like to woo it to yourpillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down andread some pages? I can well spare half an hour."
"Thank you, but I will not detain you."
"I would read softly."
"It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft,cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me."
"Well, I will go."
"And no good-night?"
"Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.)
"Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some repose."
"Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night."
"Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go."
"Give me your blessing, sir."
"God bless you, my best pupil!"
"You never call me your dearest pupil!"
"No, nor ever shall."
* * * * *
Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's rejection of hercourtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as herlight step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did notagain pause at his door; nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb asecond time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceasedto be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly triumphed over hisindisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties astutor.
That "auld lang syne" had still its authority both with preceptor andscholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes promptly passedthe distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her highreserve with a firm, quiet hand.
One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriageairing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society,had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business--alittle letter-writing--was soon dispatched after the yard gates hadclosed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden.
It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowedthe pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped,but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but notwithered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow,through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted itswoody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On thewalks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Itstime of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling ofapples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded paleand delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.
These single flowers--the last of their race--Shirley culled as shewandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into hergirdle a hueless and scentless nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to heras he came limping from the house.
"Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and tohear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation."
The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as if it were a merematter of course.
"Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?"
"Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let us once more be as wewere at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours in thosedays."
Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then;however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietlyfollowed Henry.
Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance,as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hungit up beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning theleaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil.He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise.
"You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could nothear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewedpractice in French may n
ot be unprofitable. Your accent, I haveobserved, begins to rust."
"What book shall I take?"
"Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the'Fragments de l'Amazone.'"
She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own;the volume lay on his desk--there was but one between them; her sweepingcurls dropped so low as to hide the page from him.
"Put back your hair," he said.
For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obeythe request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on theprofessor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly ortimidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she wouldhave rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was onlyawaiting her compliance--as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw theveil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeableoutline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness ofearly youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours mighthave lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society?Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.
She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; itfaltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, brokenby Anglicized tones. She stopped.
"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore."
What _he_ read _she_ repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.
"Tres bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece.
"C'est presque le Francais rattrape, n'est-ce pas?"
"You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?"
"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now."
"You could not compose the _devoir_ of 'La Premiere Femme Savante'?"
"Do you still remember that rubbish?"
"Every line."
"I doubt you."
"I will engage to repeat it word for word."
"You would stop short at the first line."
"Challenge me to the experiment."
"I challenge you."
He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we musttranslate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers.
* * * * *
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."
This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, andwhile they yet sang together.
The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veilit with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, allclear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It mustsuffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; thatman's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures,informed the planet and gave it soul.
A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race thistribe--unknown; in what region that spot--untold. We usually think ofthe East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shalldeclare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? Whatis to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves inAsia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas ofEurope?
It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem torealize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity ofshade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here,indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branchedand overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage?Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, halfhunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, notmore happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better thanourselves. Their nature is our nature--human both. There is one in thistribe too often miserable--a child bereaved of both parents. None caresfor this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hutrarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home.Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast andbird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadnesshovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, sheshould die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nursesher, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, onsaccharine root and nut.
There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly.There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereignbalm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; itstemperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring downfrom heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquelyfantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid thecolouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these foreststhere is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.
The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer anddove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she hassprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a finemould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unalteredby the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with thesurface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered hertresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flowsplenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires,beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes,when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample--aclear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, mightwrite a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothingvicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, thoughof what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.
On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterlyalone--for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leaguesaway, she knew not where--she went up from the vale, to watch Day takeleave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. Theoak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved,wove a canopy.
Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting tothe farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Nightentered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Nowevery nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safein their lair.
The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, ratherin feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining thanprojecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty.Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre--a small, forgottenatom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the greatcreative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of ablack hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her livinglight doing no good, never seen, never needed--a star in an elsestarless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, norpriest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, shedemanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when herlife beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within herstirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, forwhich it insisted she should find exercise?
She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back onher. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. Allshe questioned responded by oracles. She heard--she was impressed; butshe could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joinedtogether.
"Guidance--help--comfort--come!" was her cry.
There was no voice, nor any that answered.
She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; thesolemn stars shone alien and remote.
At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thoughtSomething above relented; she felt as if Something far round drewnigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word,only a tone.
&
nbsp; Again--a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a stormwhispering, made twilight undulate.
Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.
Yet again--a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth.
"Eva!"
If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She rose. "Here am I."
"Eva!"
"O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!"
The voice, descending, reached Earth.
"Eva!"
"Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!"
She had her religion--all tribes held some creed.
"I come--a Comforter!"
"Lord, come quickly!"
The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon--risingbefore--ascended large, but her light showed no shape.
"Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus."
"Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?"
"Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man,drink of my cup!"
"I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. Myarid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggleare gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the widesky--all change!"
"All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosenfrom thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with mypresence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take tomyself the spark of soul--burning heretofore forgotten!"
"O take me! O claim me! This is a god."
"This is a son of God--one who feels himself in the portion of life thatstirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aidthat it shall not perish hopeless."
"A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?"
"Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew theethat thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherishmine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius."
"My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would haveat last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscurewhisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou artHe I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!"
"Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not give from the altar thevery flame which lit Eva's being? Come again into the heaven whence thouwert sent."
That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to thefold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heartlike music. Her eye received no image; and yet a sense visited hervision and her brain as of the serenity of stainless air, the power ofsovereign seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of collidingelements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and, above all, asof the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night,vanquishing its shadows like a diviner sun.
Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse thetale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Whoshall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forgeddeadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall recordthe long strife between Serpent and Seraph:--How still the Father ofLies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory,pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied,resisted, and repelled? How again and again he refined the polluted cup,exalted the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detectedthe lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation--purified,justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by hisstrength, by that unutterable excellence he held from God--hisOrigin--this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight throughtime; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at theend, barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how Geniusstill held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of thepassage, bore her triumphant into his own home, Heaven; restored her,redeemed, to Jehovah, her Maker; and at last, before Angel andArchangel, crowned her with the crown of Immortality?
Who shall of these things write the chronicle?
* * * * *
"I never could correct that composition," observed Shirley, as Mooreconcluded. "Your censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, whosesignification I strove vainly to fathom."
She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was drawing littleleaves, fragments of pillars, broken crosses, on the margin of the book.
"French may be half forgotten, but the habits of the French lesson areretained, I see," said Louis. "My books would now, as erst, be unsafewith you. My newly-bound St. Pierre would soon be like my Racine--MissKeeldar, her mark, traced on every page."
Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers.
"Tell me what were the faults of that _devoir_?" she asked. "Were theygrammatical errors, or did you object to the substance?"
"I never said that the lines I drew were indications of faults at all.You would have it that such was the case, and I refrained fromcontradiction."
"What else did they denote?"
"No matter now."
"Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some of the pieces sheused to say so well by heart."
"If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompte,'" said Moore, trimmingwith his penknife the pencil Miss Keeldar had worn to a stump.
She turned aside her head; the neck, the clear cheek, forsaken by theirnatural veil, were seen to flush warm.
"Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry, exultant. "Sheknows how naughty she was."
A smile, which Shirley would not permit to expand, made her lip tremble;she bent her face, and hid it half with her arms, half in her curls,which, as she stooped, fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," sheanswered.
"A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa had quarrelled terribly,and you set both him and mamma, and Mrs. Pryor, and everybody, atdefiance. You said he had insulted you----"
"He _had_ insulted me," interposed Shirley.
"And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly. You packed your thingsup, and papa threw them out of your trunk; mamma cried, Mrs. Pryorcried; they both stood wringing their hands begging you to be patient;and you knelt on the floor with your things and your up-turned boxbefore you, looking, Shirley, looking--why, in one of _your_ passions.Your features, in such passions, are not distorted; they are fixed, butquite beautiful. You scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in acertain haste; yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast acrossyour path would be split as with lightning. Papa lost heart, and calledMr. Moore."
"Enough, Henry."
"No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore managed, except thatI recollect he suggested to papa that agitation would bring on his gout;and then he spoke quietly to the ladies, and got them away; andafterwards he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use talkingor lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into theschoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be glad if you wouldleave your packing for the present and come and make a cup of tea forhim and me. You came; you would not talk at first, but soon you softenedand grew cheerful. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent, thewar, and Bonaparte--subjects we were both fond of listening to. Aftertea he said we should neither of us leave him that evening; he would notlet us stray out of his sight, lest we should again get into mischief.We sat one on each side of him. We were so happy. I never passed sopleasant an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of anhour, and wound it up by marking you a piece to learn in Bossuet as apunishment-lesson--'Le Cheval Dompte.' You learned it instead of packingup, Shirley. We heard no more of your running away. Mr. Moore used totease you on the subject for a year afterwards."
"She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined Moore. "Shethen, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tonguespoken without accent by an English girl."
"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck inHe
nry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better thanit found it."
"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, whohad not yet lifted her face.
"Are you sure you _are_ present?" asked Moore. "There have been momentssince my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady ofFieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil."
"She is here now."
"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry norothers to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment canhide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift itpale and lofty as a marble Juno."
"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue hehad chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life tostone."
Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, atonce struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?"He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as someGerman pondering metaphysics.
"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and sochill the kind heart."
"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, youare welcome to hold it valid. _I_ don't care."
And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like in hue,as Louis had described it.
"Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined ere it isrealized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible goddess. But Henrymust not be disappointed of his recitation, and Olympia will deign tooblige him. Let us begin."
"I have forgotten the very first line."
"Which I have not. _My_ memory, if a slow, is a retentive one. I acquiredeliberately both knowledge and liking. The acquisition grows into mybrain, and the sentiment into my breast; and it is not as therapid-springing produce which, having no root in itself, flourishesverdurous enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away.Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. 'Voyez ce chevalardent et impetueux,' so it commences."
Miss Keeldar did consent to make the effort; but she soon stopped.
"Unless I heard the whole repeated I cannot continue it," she said.
"Yet it was quickly learned--'soon gained, soon gone,'" moralized thetutor. He recited the passage deliberately, accurately, with slow,impressive emphasis.
Shirley, by degrees, inclined her ear as he went on. Her face, beforeturned from him, _re_turned towards him. When he ceased, she took theword up as if from his lips; she took his very tone; she seized his veryaccent; she delivered the periods as he had delivered them; shereproduced his manner, his pronunciation, his expression.
It was now her turn to petition.
"Recall 'Le Songe d'Athalie,'" she entreated, "and say it."
He said it for her. She took it from him; she found lively excitement inthe pleasure of making his language her own. She asked for furtherindulgence; all the old school pieces were revived, and with themShirley's old school days.
He had gone through some of the best passages of Racine and Corneille,and then had heard the echo of his own deep tones in the girl's voice,that modulated itself faithfully on his. "Le chene et le Roseau," thatmost beautiful of La Fontaine's fables, had been recited, well recited,by the tutor, and the pupil had animatedly availed herself of thelesson. Perhaps a simultaneous feeling seized them now, that theirenthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which the slight fuel of French poetryno longer sufficed to feed; perhaps they longed for a trunk of Englishoak to be thrown as a Yule log to the devouring flame. Moore observed,"And these are our best pieces! And we have nothing more dramatic,nervous, natural!"
And then he smiled and was silent. His whole nature seemed serenelyalight. He stood on the hearth, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece,musing not unblissfully.
Twilight was closing on the diminished autumn day. The schoolroomwindows--darkened with creeping plants, from which no high October windshad as yet swept the sere foliage--admitted scarce a gleam of sky; butthe fire gave light enough to talk by.
And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French, and she answered atfirst with laughing hesitation and in broken phrase. Moore encouragedwhile he corrected her. Henry joined in the lesson; the two scholarsstood opposite the master, their arms round each other's waists. Tartar,who long since had craved and obtained admission, sat sagely in thecentre of the rug, staring at the blaze which burst fitful from morselsof coal among the red cinders. The group were happy enough, but--
"Pleasures are like poppies spread; You seize the flower--its bloom is shed."
The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement in theyard.
"It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner must be justready, and I am not dressed."
A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea; for the tutor and hispupil usually dined at luncheon time.
"Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir PhilipNunnely is with them."
"How you did start, and how your hand trembled, Shirley!" said Henry,when the maid had closed the shutter and was gone. "But I knowwhy--don't you, Mr. Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little uglyman, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. I wish sisters and all ofthem had stayed at De Walden Hall to dine.--Shirley should once morehave made tea for you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happyevening of it."
Moore was locking up his desk and putting away his St. Pierre. "That was_your_ plan, was it, my boy?"
"Don't you approve it, sir?"
"I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Realityout of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in aminute."
He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.