Shirley
vigour of brain, as--divided amongst half a dozen commonplace
broods--would give to each rather more than an average amount of sense
and capacity. Mr. Yorke knows this, and is proud of his race. Yorkshire
has such families here and there amongst her hills and wolds--peculiar,
racy, vigorous; of good blood and strong brain; turbulent somewhat in
the pride of their strength, and intractable in the force of their
native powers; wanting polish, wanting consideration, wanting docility,
but sound, spirited, and true-bred as the eagle on the cliff or the
steed in the steppe.
A low tap is heard at the parlour door; the boys have been making such a
noise over their game, and little Jessy, besides, has been singing so
sweet a Scotch song to her father--who delights in Scotch and Italian
songs, and has taught his musical little daughter some of the best--that
the ring at the outer door was not observed.
"Come in," says Mrs. Yorke, in that conscientiously constrained and
solemnized voice of hers, which ever modulates itself to a funereal
dreariness of tone, though the subject it is exercised upon be but to
give orders for the making of a pudding in the kitchen, to bid the boys
hang up their caps in the hall, or to call the girls to their
sewing--"come in!" And in came Robert Moore.
Moore's habitual gravity, as well as his abstemiousness (for the case of
spirit decanters is never ordered up when he pays an evening visit), has
so far recommended him to Mrs. Yorke that she has not yet made him the
subject of private animadversions with her husband; she has not yet
found out that he is hampered by a secret intrigue which prevents him
from marrying, or that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing--discoveries
which she made at an early date after marriage concerning most of her
husband's bachelor friends, and excluded them from her board
accordingly; which part of her conduct, indeed, might be said to have
its just and sensible as well as its harsh side.
"Well, is it you?" she says to Mr. Moore, as he comes up to her and
gives his hand. "What are you roving about at this time of night for?
You should be at home."
"Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?" he asks.
"Pooh!" says Mrs. Yorke, who despises conventional smoothness quite as
much as her husband does, and practises it as little, and whose plain
speaking on all occasions is carried to a point calculated, sometimes,
to awaken admiration, but oftener alarm--"pooh! you need not talk
nonsense to me; a single man can have a home if he likes. Pray, does not
your sister make a home for you?"
"Not she," joined in Mr. Yorke. "Hortense is an honest lass. But when I
was Robert's age I had five or six sisters, all as decent and proper as
she is; but you see, Hesther, for all that it did not hinder me from
looking out for a wife."
"And sorely he has repented marrying me," added Mrs. Yorke, who liked
occasionally to crack a dry jest against matrimony, even though it
should be at her own expense. "He has repented it in sackcloth and
ashes, Robert Moore, as you may well believe when you see his
punishment" (here she pointed to her children). "Who would burden
themselves with such a set of great, rough lads as those, if they could
help it? It is not only bringing them into the world, though that is bad
enough, but they are all to feed, to clothe, to rear, to settle in life.
Young sir, when you feel tempted to marry, think of our four sons and
two daughters, and look twice before you leap."
"I am not tempted now, at any rate. I think these are not times for
marrying or giving in marriage."
A lugubrious sentiment of this sort was sure to obtain Mrs. Yorke's
approbation. She nodded and groaned acquiescence; but in a minute she
said, "I make little account of the wisdom of a Solomon of your age; it
will be upset by the first fancy that crosses you. Meantime, sit down,
sir. You can talk, I suppose, as well sitting as standing?"
This was her way of inviting her guest to take a chair. He had no sooner
obeyed her than little Jessy jumped from her father's knee and ran into
Mr. Moore's arms, which were very promptly held out to receive her.
"You talk of marrying him," said she to her mother, quite indignantly,
as she was lifted lightly to his knee, "and he is married now, or as
good. He promised that I should be his wife last summer, the first time
he saw me in my new white frock and blue sash. Didn't he, father?"
(These children were not accustomed to say papa and mamma; their mother
would allow no such "namby-pamby.")
"Ay, my little lassie, he promised; I'll bear witness. But make him say
it over again now, Jessy. Such as he are only false loons."
"He is not false. He is too bonny to be false," said Jessy, looking up
to her tall sweetheart with the fullest confidence in his faith.
"Bonny!" cried Mr. Yorke. "That's the reason that he should be, and
proof that he is, a scoundrel."
"But he looks too sorrowful to be false," here interposed a quiet voice
from behind the father's chair. "If he was always laughing, I should
think he forgot promises soon, but Mr. Moore never laughs."
"Your sentimental buck is the greatest cheat of all, Rose," remarked Mr.
Yorke.
"He's not sentimental," said Rose.
Mr. Moore turned to her with a little surprise, smiling at the same
time.
"How do you know I am not sentimental, Rose?"
"Because I heard a lady say you were not."
"Voilà, qui devient intéressant!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke, hitching his
chair nearer the fire. "A lady! That has quite a romantic twang. We must
guess who it is.--Rosy, whisper the name low to your father. Don't let
_him_ hear."
"Rose, don't be too forward to talk," here interrupted Mrs. Yorke, in
her usual kill-joy fashion, "nor Jessy either. It becomes all children,
especially girls, to be silent in the presence of their elders."
"Why have we tongues, then?" asked Jessy pertly; while Rose only looked
at her mother with an expression that seemed to say she should take that
maxim in and think it over at her leisure. After two minutes' grave
deliberation, she asked, "And why especially girls, mother?"
"Firstly, because I say so; and secondly, because discretion and reserve
are a girl's best wisdom."
"My dear madam," observed Moore, "what you say is excellent--it reminds
me, indeed, of my dear sister's observations; but really it is not
applicable to these little ones. Let Rose and Jessy talk to me freely,
or my chief pleasure in coming here is gone. I like their prattle; it
does me good."
"Does it not?" asked Jessy. "More good than if the rough lads came round
you.--You call them rough, mother, yourself."
"Yes, mignonne, a thousand times more good. I have rough lads enough
about me all day long, poulet."
"There are plenty of people," continued she, "who take notice of the
boys. All my uncles and aunts seem to think their nephews better than
their nieces, and when gentlemen come here to dine, it is always
Matthew, and Mark, and Martin that are talked to, and never Rose and me.
Mr. Moore is _our_ friend, and we'll keep him.--But mind, Rose, he's not
so much your friend as he is mine. He is my _particular acquaintance_;
remember that!" And she held up her small hand with an admonitory
gesture.
Rose was quite accustomed to be admonished by that small hand. Her will
daily bent itself to that of the impetuous little Jessy. She was guided,
overruled by Jessy in a thousand things. On all occasions of show and
pleasure Jessy took the lead, and Rose fell quietly into the background;
whereas, when the disagreeables of life--its work and privations--were
in question, Rose instinctively took upon her, in addition to her own
share, what she could of her sister's. Jessy had already settled it in
her mind that she, when she was old enough, was to be married; Rose, she
decided, must be an old maid, to live with her, look after her children,
keep her house. This state of things is not uncommon between two
sisters, where one is plain and the other pretty; but in this case, if
there _was_ a difference in external appearance, Rose had the advantage:
her face was more regular-featured than that of the piquant little
Jessy. Jessy, however, was destined to possess, along with sprightly
intelligence and vivacious feeling, the gift of fascination, the power
to charm when, where, and whom she would. Rose was to have a fine,
generous soul, a noble intellect profoundly cultivated, a heart as true
as steel, but the manner to attract was not to be hers.
"Now, Rose, tell me the name of this lady who denied that I was
sentimental," urged Mr. Moore.
Rose had no idea of tantalization, or she would have held him a while in
doubt. She answered briefly, "I can't. I don't know her name."
"Describe her to me. What was she like? Where did you see her?"
"When Jessy and I went to spend the day at Whinbury with Kate and Susan
Pearson, who were just come home from school, there was a party at Mrs.
Pearson's, and some grown-up ladies were sitting in a corner of the
drawing-room talking about you."
"Did you know none of them?"
"Hannah, and Harriet, and Dora, and Mary Sykes."
"Good. Were they abusing me, Rosy?"
"Some of them were. They called you a misanthrope. I remember the word.
I looked for it in the dictionary when I came home. It means a
man-hater."
"What besides?"
"Hannah Sykes said you were a solemn puppy."
"Better!" cried Mr. Yorke, laughing. "Oh, excellent! Hannah! that's the
one with the red hair--a fine girl, but half-witted."
"She has wit enough for me, it appears," said Moore. "A solemn puppy,
indeed! Well, Rose, go on."
"Miss Pearson said she believed there was a good deal of affectation
about you, and that with your dark hair and pale face you looked to her
like some sort of a sentimental noodle."
Again Mr. Yorke laughed. Mrs. Yorke even joined in this time. "You see
in what esteem you are held behind your back," said she; "yet I believe
_that_ Miss Pearson would like to catch you. She set her cap at you when
you first came into the country, old as she is."
"And who contradicted her, Rosy?" inquired Moore.
"A lady whom I don't know, because she never visits here, though I see
her every Sunday at church. She sits in the pew near the pulpit. I
generally look at her, instead of looking at my prayer-book, for she is
like a picture in our dining-room, that woman with the dove in her
hand--at least she has eyes like it, and a nose too, a straight nose,
that makes all her face look, somehow, what I call clear."
"And you don't know her!" exclaimed Jessy, in a tone of exceeding
surprise. "That's so like Rose. Mr. Moore, I often wonder in what sort
of a world my sister lives. I am sure she does not live all her time in
this. One is continually finding out that she is quite ignorant of some
little matter which everybody else knows. To think of her going solemnly
to church every Sunday, and looking all service-time at one particular
person, and never so much as asking that person's name. She means
Caroline Helstone, the rector's niece. I remember all about it. Miss
Helstone was quite angry with Anne Pearson. She said, 'Robert Moore is
neither affected nor sentimental; you mistake his character utterly, or
rather not one of you here knows anything about it.' Now, shall I tell
you what she is like? I can tell what people are like, and how they are
dressed, better than Rose can."
"Let us hear."
"She is nice; she is fair; she has a pretty white slender throat; she
has long curls, not stiff ones--they hang loose and soft, their colour
is brown but not dark; she speaks quietly, with a clear tone; she never
makes a bustle in moving; she often wears a gray silk dress; she is neat
all over--her gowns, and her shoes, and her gloves always fit her. She