Shirley
The work-hours were over; the "hands" were gone. The machinery was at
rest, the mill shut up. Malone walked round it. Somewhere in its great
sooty flank he found another chink of light; he knocked at another
door, using for the purpose the thick end of his shillelah, with which
he beat a rousing tattoo. A key turned; the door unclosed.
"Is it Joe Scott? What news of the wagons, Joe?"
"No; it's myself. Mr. Helstone would send me."
"Oh! Mr. Malone." The voice in uttering this name had the slightest
possible cadence of disappointment. After a moment's pause it continued,
politely but a little formally,--
"I beg you will come in, Mr. Malone. I regret extremely Mr. Helstone
should have thought it necessary to trouble you so far. There was no
necessity--I told him so--and on such a night; but walk forwards."
Through a dark apartment, of aspect undistinguishable, Malone followed
the speaker into a light and bright room within--very light and bright
indeed it seemed to eyes which, for the last hour, had been striving to
penetrate the double darkness of night and fog; but except for its
excellent fire, and for a lamp of elegant design and vivid lustre
burning on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was
carpetless; the three or four stiff-backed, green-painted chairs seemed
once to have furnished the kitchen of some farm-house; a desk of strong,
solid formation, the table aforesaid, and some framed sheets on the
stone-coloured walls, bearing plans for building, for gardening, designs
of machinery, etc., completed the furniture of the place.
Plain as it was, it seemed to satisfy Malone, who, when he had removed
and hung up his wet surtout and hat, drew one of the rheumatic-looking
chairs to the hearth, and set his knees almost within the bars of the
red grate.
"Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore; and all snug to
yourself."
"Yes, but my sister would be glad to see you, if you would prefer
stepping into the house."
"Oh no! The ladies are best alone, I never was a lady's man. You don't
mistake me for my friend Sweeting, do you, Mr. Moore?"
"Sweeting! Which of them is that? The gentleman in the chocolate
overcoat, or the little gentleman?"
"The little one--he of Nunnely; the cavalier of the Misses Sykes, with
the whole six of whom he is in love, ha! ha!"
"Better be generally in love with all than specially with one, I should
think, in that quarter."
"But he is specially in love with one besides, for when I and Donne
urged him to make a choice amongst the fair bevy, he named--which do you
think?"
With a queer, quiet smile Mr. Moore replied, "Dora, of course, or
Harriet."
"Ha! ha! you've an excellent guess. But what made you hit on those two?"
"Because they are the tallest, the handsomest, and Dora, at least, is
the stoutest; and as your friend Mr. Sweeting is but a little slight
figure, I concluded that, according to a frequent rule in such cases, he
preferred his contrast."
"You are right; Dora it is. But he has no chance, has he, Moore?"
"What has Mr. Sweeting besides his curacy?"
This question seemed to tickle Malone amazingly. He laughed for full
three minutes before he answered it.
"What has Sweeting? Why, David has his harp, or flute, which comes to
the same thing. He has a sort of pinchbeck watch; ditto, ring; ditto,
eyeglass. That's what he has."
"How would he propose to keep Miss Sykes in gowns only?"
"Ha! ha! Excellent! I'll ask him that next time I see him. I'll roast
him for his presumption. But no doubt he expects old Christopher Sykes
would do something handsome. He is rich, is he not? They live in a large
house."
"Sykes carries on an extensive concern."
"Therefore he must be wealthy, eh?"
"Therefore he must have plenty to do with his wealth, and in these times
would be about as likely to think of drawing money from the business to
give dowries to his daughters as I should be to dream of pulling down
the cottage there, and constructing on its ruins a house as large as
Fieldhead."
"Do you know what I heard, Moore, the other day?"
"No. Perhaps that I _was_ about to effect some such change. Your
Briarfield gossips are capable of saying that or sillier things."
"That you were going to take Fieldhead on a lease (I thought it looked a
dismal place, by-the-bye, to-night, as I passed it), and that it was
your intention to settle a Miss Sykes there as mistress--to be married,
in short, ha! ha! Now, which is it? Dora, I am sure. You said she was
the handsomest."
"I wonder how often it has been settled that I was to be married since I
came to Briarfield. They have assigned me every marriageable single
woman by turns in the district. Now it was the two Misses Wynns--first
the dark, then the light one; now the red-haired Miss Armitage; then the
mature Ann Pearson. At present you throw on my shoulders all the tribe
of the Misses Sykes. On what grounds this gossip rests God knows. I
visit nowhere; I seek female society about as assiduously as you do, Mr.
Malone. If ever I go to Whinbury, it is only to give Sykes or Pearson a
call in their counting-house, where our discussions run on other topics
than matrimony, and our thoughts are occupied with other things than
courtships, establishments, dowries. The cloth we can't sell, the hands
we can't employ, the mills we can't run, the perverse course of events
generally, which we cannot alter, fill our hearts, I take it, pretty
well at present, to the tolerably complete exclusion of such figments as
love-making, etc."
"I go along with you completely, Moore. If there is one notion I hate
more than another, it is that of marriage--I mean marriage in the vulgar
weak sense, as a mere matter of sentiment--two beggarly fools agreeing
to unite their indigence by some fantastic tie of feeling. Humbug! But
an advantageous connection, such as can be formed in consonance with
dignity of views and permanency of solid interests, is not so bad--eh?"
"No," responded Moore, in an absent manner. The subject seemed to have
no interest for him; he did not pursue it. After sitting for some time
gazing at the fire with a preoccupied air, he suddenly turned his head.
"Hark!" said he. "Did you hear wheels?"
Rising, he went to the window, opened it, and listened. He soon closed
it. "It is only the sound of the wind rising," he remarked, "and the
rivulet a little swollen, rushing down the hollow. I expected those
wagons at six; it is near nine now."
"Seriously, do you suppose that the putting up of this new machinery
will bring you into danger?" inquired Malone. "Helstone seems to think
it will."
"I only wish the machines--the frames--were safe here, and lodged within
the walls of this mill. Once put up, I defy the frame-breakers. Let them
only pay me a visit and take the consequences. My mill is my castle."
"One despises such low scoundrels," observed Malone, in a profound vein
of reflection. "I almost wish a party would call upon you to-night; but
the road seemed extremely quiet as I came along. I saw nothing astir."
"You came by the Redhouse?"
"Yes."
"There would be nothing on that road. It is in the direction of Stilbro'
the risk lies."
"And you think there is risk?"
"What these fellows have done to others they may do to me. There is only
this difference: most of the manufacturers seem paralyzed when they are
attacked. Sykes, for instance, when his dressing-shop was set on fire
and burned to the ground, when the cloth was torn from his tenters and
left in shreds in the field, took no steps to discover or punish the
miscreants: he gave up as tamely as a rabbit under the jaws of a ferret.
Now I, if I know myself, should stand by my trade, my mill, and my
machinery."
"Helstone says these three are your gods; that the 'Orders in Council'
are with you another name for the seven deadly sins; that Castlereagh is
your Antichrist, and the war-party his legions."
"Yes; I abhor all these things because they ruin me. They stand in my
way. I cannot get on. I cannot execute my plans because of them. I see
myself baffled at every turn by their untoward effects."
"But you are rich and thriving, Moore?"
"I am very rich in cloth I cannot sell. You should step into my
warehouse yonder, and observe how it is piled to the roof with pieces.
Roakes and Pearson are in the same condition. America used to be their
market, but the Orders in Council have cut that off."
Malone did not seem prepared to carry on briskly a conversation of this
sort. He began to knock the heels of his boots together, and to yawn.
"And then to think," continued Mr. Moore who seemed too much taken up
with the current of his own thoughts to note the symptoms of his guest's
_ennui_--"to think that these ridiculous gossips of Whinbury and
Briarfield will keep pestering one about being married! As if there was
nothing to be done in life but to 'pay attention,' as they say, to some
young lady, and then to go to church with her, and then to start on a
bridal tour, and then to run through a round of visits, and then, I
suppose, to be 'having a family.' Oh, que le diable emporte!" He broke
off the aspiration into which he was launching with a certain energy,
and added, more calmly, "I believe women talk and think only of these
things, and they naturally fancy men's minds similarly occupied."
"Of course--of course," assented Malone; "but never mind them." And he
whistled, looked impatiently round, and seemed to feel a great want of
something. This time Moore caught and, it appeared, comprehended his
demonstrations.
"Mr. Malone," said he, "you must require refreshment after your wet
walk. I forget hospitality."
"Not at all," rejoined Malone; but he looked as if the right nail was at
last hit on the head, nevertheless. Moore rose and opened a cupboard.
"It is my fancy," said he, "to have every convenience within myself, and
not to be dependent on the feminity in the cottage yonder for every
mouthful I eat or every drop I drink. I often spend the evening and sup
here alone, and sleep with Joe Scott in the mill. Sometimes I am my own
watchman. I require little sleep, and it pleases me on a fine night to
wander for an hour or two with my musket about the hollow. Mr. Malone,
can you cook a mutton chop?"
"Try me. I've done it hundreds of times at college."
"There's a dishful, then, and there's the gridiron. Turn them quickly.
You know the secret of keeping the juices in?"
"Never fear me; you shall see. Hand a knife and fork, please."
The curate turned up his coat-cuffs, and applied himself to the cookery
with vigour. The manufacturer placed on the table plates, a loaf of
bread, a black bottle, and two tumblers. He then produced a small copper
kettle--still from the same well-stored recess, his cupboard--filled it
with water from a large stone jar in a corner, set it on the fire beside
the hissing gridiron, got lemons, sugar, and a small china punch-bowl;
but while he was brewing the punch a tap at the door called him away.
"Is it you, Sarah?"
"Yes, sir. Will you come to supper, please, sir?"
"No; I shall not be in to-night; I shall sleep in the mill. So lock the
doors, and tell your mistress to go to bed."
He returned.
"You have your household in proper order," observed Malone approvingly,
as, with his fine face ruddy as the embers over which he bent, he
assiduously turned the mutton chops. "You are not under petticoat
government, like poor Sweeting, a man--whew! how the fat spits! it has
burnt my hand--destined to be ruled by women. Now you and I,
Moore--there's a fine brown one for you, and full of gravy--you and I
will have no gray mares in our stables when we marry."
"I don't know; I never think about it. If the gray mare is handsome and
tractable, why not?"