Shirley
The moon rises at half-past eight, and I will walk up to the rectory
with you at nine. Do you agree?"
She nodded her head, and her eyes lit up.
Moore lingered yet two minutes. He bent over Caroline's desk and glanced
at her grammar, he fingered her pen, he lifted her bouquet and played
with it; his horse stamped impatient; Fred Murgatroyd hemmed and coughed
at the gate, as if he wondered what in the world his master was doing.
"Good-morning," again said Moore, and finally vanished.
Hortense, coming in ten minutes after, found, to her surprise, that
Caroline had not yet commenced her exercise.
CHAPTER VI.
CORIOLANUS.
Mademoiselle Moore had that morning a somewhat absent-minded pupil.
Caroline forgot, again and again, the explanations which were given to
her. However, she still bore with unclouded mood the chidings her
inattention brought upon her. Sitting in the sunshine near the window,
she seemed to receive with its warmth a kind influence, which made her
both happy and good. Thus disposed, she looked her best, and her best
was a pleasing vision.
To her had not been denied the gift of beauty. It was not absolutely
necessary to know her in order to like her; she was fair enough to
please, even at the first view. Her shape suited her age: it was
girlish, light, and pliant; every curve was neat, every limb
proportionate; her face was expressive and gentle; her eyes were
handsome, and gifted at times with a winning beam that stole into the
heart, with a language that spoke softly to the affections. Her mouth
was very pretty; she had a delicate skin, and a fine flow of brown hair,
which she knew how to arrange with taste; curls became her, and she
possessed them in picturesque profusion. Her style of dress announced
taste in the wearer--very unobtrusive in fashion, far from costly in
material, but suitable in colour to the fair complexion with which it
contrasted, and in make to the slight form which it draped. Her present
winter garb was of merino--the same soft shade of brown as her hair; the
little collar round her neck lay over a pink ribbon, and was fastened
with a pink knot. She wore no other decoration.
So much for Caroline Helstone's appearance. As to her character or
intellect, if she had any, they must speak for themselves in due time.
Her connections are soon explained. She was the child of parents
separated soon after her birth, in consequence of disagreement of
disposition. Her mother was the half-sister of Mr. Moore's father; thus,
though there was no mixture of blood, she was, in a distant sense, the
cousin of Robert, Louis, and Hortense. Her father was the brother of Mr.
Helstone--a man of the character friends desire not to recall, after
death has once settled all earthly accounts. He had rendered his wife
unhappy. The reports which were known to be true concerning him had
given an air of probability to those which were falsely circulated
respecting his better-principled brother. Caroline had never known her
mother, as she was taken from her in infancy, and had not since seen
her; her father died comparatively young, and her uncle, the rector, had
for some years been her sole guardian. He was not, as we are aware, much
adapted, either by nature or habits, to have the charge of a young girl.
He had taken little trouble about her education; probably he would have
taken none if she, finding herself neglected, had not grown anxious on
her own account, and asked, every now and then, for a little attention,
and for the means of acquiring such amount of knowledge as could not be
dispensed with. Still, she had a depressing feeling that she was
inferior, that her attainments were fewer than were usually possessed by
girls of her age and station; and very glad was she to avail herself of
the kind offer made by her cousin Hortense, soon after the arrival of
the latter at Hollow's Mill, to teach her French and fine needle-work.
Mdlle. Moore, for her part, delighted in the task, because it gave her
importance; she liked to lord it a little over a docile yet quick pupil.
She took Caroline precisely at her own estimate, as an
irregularly-taught, even ignorant girl; and when she found that she made
rapid and eager progress, it was to no talent, no application, in the
scholar she ascribed the improvement, but entirely to her own superior
method of teaching. When she found that Caroline, unskilled in routine,
had a knowledge of her own, desultory but varied, the discovery caused
her no surprise, for she still imagined that from her conversation had
the girl unawares gleaned these treasures. She thought it even when
forced to feel that her pupil knew much on subjects whereof she knew
little. The idea was not logical, but Hortense had perfect faith in it.
Mademoiselle, who prided herself on possessing "un esprit positif," and
on entertaining a decided preference for dry studies, kept her young
cousin to the same as closely as she could. She worked her unrelentingly
at the grammar of the French language, assigning her, as the most
improving exercise she could devise, interminable "analyses logiques."
These "analyses" were by no means a source of particular pleasure to
Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just as well without
them, and grudged excessively the time spent in pondering over
"propositions, principales, et incidents;" in deciding the "incidente
determinative," and the "incidente applicative;" in examining whether
the proposition was "pleine," "elliptique," or "implicite." Sometimes
she lost herself in the maze, and when so lost she would, now and then
(while Hortense was rummaging her drawers upstairs--an unaccountable
occupation in which she spent a large portion of each day, arranging,
disarranging, rearranging, and counter-arranging), carry her book to
Robert in the counting-house, and get the rough place made smooth by his
aid. Mr. Moore possessed a clear, tranquil brain of his own. Almost as
soon as he looked at Caroline's little difficulties they seemed to
dissolve beneath his eye. In two minutes he would explain all, in two
words give the key to the puzzle. She thought if Hortense could only
teach like him, how much faster she might learn! Repaying him by an
admiring and grateful smile, rather shed at his feet than lifted to his
face, she would leave the mill reluctantly to go back to the cottage,
and then, while she completed the exercise, or worked out the sum (for
Mdlle. Moore taught her arithmetic too), she would wish nature had made
her a boy instead of a girl, that she might ask Robert to let her be his
clerk, and sit with him in the counting-house, instead of sitting with
Hortense in the parlour.
Occasionally--but this happened very rarely--she spent the evening at
Hollow's Cottage. Sometimes during these visits Moore was away attending
a market; sometimes he was gone to Mr. Yorke's; often he was engaged
with a male visitor in another room; but sometimes, too, he was at home,
disengaged, free to talk with Caroline. When this was the case, the
evening hours passed on wings of light; they were gone before they were
counted. There was no room in England so pleasant as that small parlour
when the three cousins occupied it. Hortense, when she was not teaching,
or scolding, or cooking, was far from ill-humoured; it was her custom to
relax towards evening, and to be kind to her young English kinswoman.
There was a means, too, of rendering her delightful, by inducing her to
take her guitar and sing and play. She then became quite good-natured.
And as she played with skill, and had a well-toned voice, it was not
disagreeable to listen to her. It would have been absolutely agreeable,
except that her formal and self-important character modulated her
strains, as it impressed her manners and moulded her countenance.
Mr. Moore, released from the business yoke, was, if not lively himself,
a willing spectator of Caroline's liveliness, a complacent listener to
her talk, a ready respondent to her questions. He was something
agreeable to sit near, to hover round, to address and look at. Sometimes
he was better than this--almost animated, quite gentle and friendly.
The drawback was that by the next morning he was sure to be frozen up
again; and however much he seemed, in his quiet way, to enjoy these
social evenings, he rarely contrived their recurrence. This circumstance
puzzled the inexperienced head of his cousin. "If I had a means of
happiness at my command," she thought, "I would employ that means often.
I would keep it bright with use, and not let it lie for weeks aside,
till it gets rusty."
Yet she was careful not to put in practice her own theory. Much as she
liked an evening visit to the cottage, she never paid one unasked.
Often, indeed, when pressed by Hortense to come, she would refuse,
because Robert did not second, or but slightly seconded the request.
This morning was the first time he had ever, of his own unprompted will,
given her an invitation; and then he had spoken so kindly that in
hearing him she had received a sense of happiness sufficient to keep her
glad for the whole day.
The morning passed as usual. Mademoiselle, ever breathlessly busy, spent
it in bustling from kitchen to parlour, now scolding Sarah, now looking
over Caroline's exercise or hearing her repetition-lesson. However
faultlessly these tasks were achieved, she never commended: it was a
maxim with her that praise is inconsistent with a teacher's dignity, and
that blame, in more or less unqualified measure, is indispensable to it.
She thought incessant reprimand, severe or slight, quite necessary to
the maintenance of her authority; and if no possible error was to be
found in the lesson, it was the pupil's carriage, or air, or dress, or
mien, which required correction.
The usual affray took place about the dinner, which meal, when Sarah at
last brought it into the room, she almost flung upon the table, with a
look that expressed quite plainly, "I never dished such stuff i' my life
afore; it's not fit for dogs." Notwithstanding Sarah's scorn, it was a
savoury repast enough. The soup was a sort of purée of dried peas, which
mademoiselle had prepared amidst bitter lamentations that in this
desolate country of England no haricot beans were to be had. Then came a
dish of meat--nature unknown, but supposed to be
miscellaneous--singularly chopped up with crumbs of bread, seasoned
uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in a mould--a queer but by
no means unpalatable dish. Greens, oddly bruised, formed the
accompanying vegetable; and a pâté of fruit, conserved after a recipe
devised by Madame Gérard Moore's "grand'mère," and from the taste of
which it appeared probable that "mélasse" had been substituted for
sugar, completed the dinner.
Caroline had no objection to this Belgian cookery--indeed she rather
liked it for a change; and it was well she did so, for had she evinced
any disrelish thereof, such manifestation would have injured her in
mademoiselle's good graces for ever; a positive crime might have been
more easily pardoned than a symptom of distaste for the foreign
comestibles.
Soon after dinner Caroline coaxed her governess-cousin upstairs to
dress. This manœuvre required management. To have hinted that the
jupon, camisole, and curl-papers were odious objects, or indeed other
than quite meritorious points, would have been a felony. Any premature
attempt to urge their disappearance was therefore unwise, and would be
likely to issue in the persevering wear of them during the whole day.
Carefully avoiding rocks and quicksands, however, the pupil, on pretence
of requiring a change of scene, contrived to get the teacher aloft; and,
once in the bedroom, she persuaded her that it was not worth while