Shirley
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 day-dream--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 for ever 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