Shirley
the determination to try in future to excuse her faults; never again to
make light of her peculiarities or to laugh at her plainness; and, above
all things, not to neglect her, but to come once a week, and to offer
her, from one human heart at least, the homage of affection and respect.
She felt she could now sincerely give her a small tribute of each
feeling.
Caroline, on her return, told Fanny she was very glad she had gone out,
as she felt much better for the visit. The next day she failed not to
seek Miss Ainley. This lady was in narrower circumstances than Miss
Mann, and her dwelling was more humble. It was, however, if possible,
yet more exquisitely clean, though the decayed gentlewoman could not
afford to keep a servant, but waited on herself, and had only the
occasional assistance of a little girl who lived in a cottage near.
Not only was Miss Ainley poorer, but she was even plainer than the other
old maid. In her first youth she must have been ugly; now, at the age of
fifty, she was _very_ ugly. At first sight, all but peculiarly
well-disciplined minds were apt to turn from her with annoyance, to
conceive against her a prejudice, simply on the ground of her
unattractive look. Then she was prim in dress and manner; she looked,
spoke, and moved the complete old maid.
Her welcome to Caroline was formal, even in its kindness--for it was
kind; but Miss Helstone excused this. She knew something of the
benevolence of the heart which beat under that starched kerchief; all
the neighbourhood--at least all the female neighbourhood--knew something
of it. No one spoke against Miss Ainley except lively young gentlemen
and inconsiderate old ones, who declared her hideous.
Caroline was soon at home in that tiny parlour. A kind hand took from
her her shawl and bonnet, and installed her in the most comfortable seat
near the fire. The young and the antiquated woman were presently deep in
kindly conversation, and soon Caroline became aware of the power a most
serene, unselfish, and benignant mind could exercise over those to whom
it was developed. She talked never of herself, always of others. Their
faults she passed over. Her theme was their wants, which she sought to
supply; their sufferings, which she longed to alleviate. She was
religious, a professor of religion--what some would call "a saint;" and
she referred to religion often in sanctioned phrase--in phrase which
those who possess a perception of the ridiculous, without owning the
power of exactly testing and truly judging character, would certainly
have esteemed a proper subject for satire, a matter for mimicry and
laughter. They would have been hugely mistaken for their pains.
Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always respectable. Whether
truth--be it religious or moral truth--speak eloquently and in
well-chosen language or not, its voice should be heard with reverence.
Let those who cannot nicely, and with certainty, discern the difference
between the tones of hypocrisy and those of sincerity, never presume to
laugh at all, lest they should have the miserable misfortune to laugh in
the wrong place, and commit impiety when they think they are achieving
wit.
Not from Miss Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works, but
she knew much of them nevertheless. Her beneficence was the familiar
topic of the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving. The
old maid was too poor to give much, though she straitened herself to
privation that she might contribute her mite when needful. They were the
works of a Sister of Charity--far more difficult to perform than those
of a Lady Bountiful. She would watch by any sick-bed; she seemed to fear
no disease. She would nurse the poorest whom none else would nurse. She
was serene, humble, kind, and equable through everything.
For this goodness she got but little reward in this life. Many of the
poor became so accustomed to her services that they hardly thanked her
for them. The rich heard them mentioned with wonder, but were silent,
from a sense of shame at the difference between her sacrifices and their
own. Many ladies, however, respected her deeply. They could not help it.
One gentleman--one only--gave her his friendship and perfect confidence.
This was Mr. Hall, the vicar of Nunnely. He said, and said truly, that
her life came nearer the life of Christ than that of any other human
being he had ever met with. You must not think, reader, that in
sketching Miss Ainley's character I depict a figment of imagination. No.
We seek the originals of such portraits in real life only.
Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now revealed to her. She
found no high intellect to admire--the old maid was merely sensible--but
she discovered so much goodness, so much usefulness, so much mildness,
patience, truth, that she bent her own mind before Miss Ainley's in
reverence. What was her love of nature, what was her sense of beauty,
what were her more varied and fervent emotions, what was her deeper
power of thought, what her wider capacity to comprehend, compared to the
practical excellence of this good woman? Momently, they seemed only
beautiful forms of selfish delight; mentally, she trod them under foot.
It is true she still felt with pain that the life which made Miss Ainley
happy could not make her happy. Pure and active as it was, in her heart
she deemed it deeply dreary, because it was so loveless--to her ideas,
so forlorn. Yet, doubtless, she reflected, it needed only habit to make
it practicable and agreeable to any one. It was despicable, she felt, to
pine sentimentally, to cherish secret griefs, vain memories, to be
inert, to waste youth in aching languor, to grow old doing nothing.
"I will bestir myself," was her resolution, "and try to be wise if I
cannot be good."
She proceeded to make inquiry of Miss Ainley if she could help her in
anything. Miss Ainley, glad of an assistant, told her that she could,
and indicated some poor families in Briarfield that it was desirable she
should visit, giving her likewise, at her further request, some work to
do for certain poor women who had many children, and who were unskilled
in using the needle for themselves.
Caroline went home, laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swerve
from them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her various
studies, and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might
direct her to do. The remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a
moment was to be left for the indulgence of such fevered thoughts as had
poisoned last Sunday evening.
To do her justice, she executed her plans conscientiously,
perseveringly. It was very hard work at first--it was even hard work to
the end--but it helped her to stem and keep down anguish; it forced her
to be employed; it forbade her to brood; and gleams of satisfaction
chequered her gray life here and there when she found she had done good,
imparted pleasure, or allayed suffering.
Yet I must speak truth. These efforts brought her neither health of body
nor continued peace of mind. With them all she wasted, grew more joyless
and more wan; with them all her memory kept harping on the name of
Robert Moore; an elegy over the past still rung constantly in her ear; a
funereal inward cry haunted and harassed her; the heaviness of a broken
spirit, and of pining and palsying faculties, settled slow on her
buoyant youth. Winter seemed conquering her spring; the mind's soil and
its treasures were freezing gradually to barren stagnation.
CHAPTER XI.
FIELDHEAD.
Yet Caroline refused tamely to succumb. She had native strength in her
girl's heart, and she used it. Men and women never struggle so hard as
when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant,
unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied.
Miss Helstone was in this position. Her sufferings were her only spur,
and being very real and sharp, they roused her spirit keenly. Bent on
victory over a mortal pain, she did her best to quell it. Never had she
been seen so busy, so studious, and, above all, so active. She took
walks in all weathers, long walks in solitary directions. Day by day she
came back in the evening, pale and wearied-looking, yet seemingly not
fatigued; for still, as soon as she had thrown off her bonnet and shawl,
she would, instead of resting, begin to pace her apartment. Sometimes
she would not sit down till she was literally faint. She said she did
this to tire herself well, that she might sleep soundly at night. But if
that was her aim it was unattained; for at night, when others slumbered,
she was tossing on her pillow, or sitting at the foot of her couch in
the darkness, forgetful, apparently, of the necessity of seeking repose.
Often, unhappy girl! she was crying--crying in a sort of intolerable
despair, which, when it rushed over her, smote down her strength, and
reduced her to childlike helplessness.
When thus prostrate, temptations besieged her. Weak suggestions
whispered in her weary heart to write to Robert, and say that she was
unhappy because she was forbidden to see him and Hortense, and that she
feared he would withdraw his friendship (not love) from her, and forget
her entirely, and begging him to remember her, and sometimes to write to
her. One or two such letters she actually indited, but she never sent
them: shame and good sense forbade.
At last the life she led reached the point when it seemed she could bear
it no longer, that she must seek and find a change somehow, or her heart
and head would fail under the pressure which strained them. She longed
to leave Briarfield, to go to some very distant place. She longed for
something else--the deep, secret, anxious yearning to discover and know
her mother strengthened daily; but with the desire was coupled a doubt,
a dread--if she knew her, could she love her? There was cause for
hesitation, for apprehension on this point. Never in her life had she
heard that mother praised; whoever mentioned her mentioned her coolly.
Her uncle seemed to regard his sister-in-law with a sort of tacit
antipathy; an old servant, who had lived with Mrs. James Helstone for a
short time after her marriage, whenever she referred to her former
mistress, spoke with chilling reserve--sometimes she called her "queer,"
sometimes she said she did not understand her. These expressions were
ice to the daughter's heart; they suggested the conclusion that it was
perhaps better never to know her parent than to know her and not like
her.
But one project could she frame whose execution seemed likely to bring
her a hope of relief: it was to take a situation, to be a governess; she
could do nothing else. A little incident brought her to the point, when
she found courage to break her design to her uncle.
Her long and late walks lay always, as has been said, on lonely roads;
but in whatever direction she had rambled--whether along the drear
skirts of Stilbro' Moor or over the sunny stretch of Nunnely Common--her
homeward path was still so contrived as to lead her near the Hollow. She
rarely descended the den, but she visited its brink at twilight almost
as regularly as the stars rose over the hillcrests. Her resting-place
was at a certain stile under a certain old thorn. Thence she could look
down on the cottage, the mill, the dewy garden-ground, the still, deep
dam; thence was visible the well-known counting-house window, from whose
panes at a fixed hour shot, suddenly bright, the ray of the well-known
lamp. Her errand was to watch for this ray, her reward to catch it,
sometimes sparkling bright in clear air, sometimes shimmering dim
through mist, and anon flashing broken between slant lines of rain--for
she came in all weathers.
There were nights when it failed to appear. She knew then that Robert