Shirley
With returning silence, with the lull of the chime, and the retreat of
her small untamed and unknown _protégé_, she still resumed the dream,
nestling to the vision's side--listening to, conversing with it. It
paled at last. As dawn approached, the setting stars and breaking day
dimmed the creation of fancy; the wakened song of birds hushed her
whispers. The tale full of fire, quick with interest, borne away by the
morning wind, became a vague murmur. The shape that, seen in a moonbeam,
lived, had a pulse, had movement, wore health's glow and youth's
freshness, turned cold and ghostly gray, confronted with the red of
sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last. She crept to her
couch, chill and dejected.
CHAPTER XIV.
SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS.
"Of course, I know he will marry Shirley," were her first words when she
rose in the morning. "And he ought to marry her. She can help him," she
added firmly. "But I shall be forgotten when they _are_ married," was
the cruel succeeding thought. "Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten! And
what--_what_ shall I do when Robert is taken quite from me? Where shall
I turn? _My_ Robert! I wish I could justly call him mine. But I am
poverty and incapacity; Shirley is wealth and power. And she is beauty
too, and love. I cannot deny it. This is no sordid suit. She loves
him--not with inferior feelings. She loves, or _will_ love, as he must
feel proud to be loved. Not a valid objection can be made. Let them be
married, then. But afterwards I shall be nothing to him. As for being
his sister, and all that stuff, I despise it. I will either be all or
nothing to a man like Robert; no feeble shuffling or false cant is
endurable. Once let that pair be united, and I will certainly leave
them. As for lingering about, playing the hypocrite, and pretending to
calm sentiments of friendship, when my soul will be wrung with other
feelings, I shall not descend to such degradation. As little could I
fill the place of their mutual friend as that of their deadly foe; as
little could I stand between them as trample over them. Robert is a
first-rate man--in my eyes. I _have_ loved, _do_ love, and _must___ love
him. I would be his wife if I could; as I cannot, I must go where I
shall never see him. There is but one alternative--to cleave to him as
if I were a part of him, or to be sundered from him wide as the two
poles of a sphere.--Sunder me then, Providence. Part us speedily."
Some such aspirations as these were again working in her mind late in
the afternoon, when the apparition of one of the personages haunting her
thoughts passed the parlour window. Miss Keeldar sauntered slowly by,
her gait, her countenance, wearing that mixture of wistfulness and
carelessness which, when quiescent, was the wonted cast of her look and
character of her bearing. When animated, the carelessness quite
vanished, the wistfulness became blent with a genial gaiety, seasoning
the laugh, the smile, the glance, with a unique flavour of sentiment, so
that mirth from her never resembled "the crackling of thorns under a
pot."
"What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you
promised?" was her address to Caroline as she entered the room.
"I was not in the humour," replied Miss Helstone, very truly.
Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye.
"No," she said; "I see you are not in the humour for loving me. You are
in one of your sunless, inclement moods, when one feels a
fellow-creature's presence is not welcome to you. You have such moods.
Are you aware of it?"
"Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?"
"Yes. I am come to have my tea, and must have it before I go. I shall
take the liberty, then, of removing my bonnet, without being asked."
And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her hands behind her.
"A pretty expression you have in your countenance," she went on, still
gazing keenly, though not inimically--rather indeed pityingly--at
Caroline. "Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking,
wounded deer. Are you afraid Shirley will worry you if she discovers
that you are hurt, and that you bleed?"
"I never do fear Shirley."
"But sometimes you dislike her; often you avoid her. Shirley can feel
when she is slighted and shunned. If you had not walked home in the
company you did last night, you would have been a different girl to-day.
What time did you reach the rectory?"
"By ten."
"Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you,
or Moore, who lingered so?"
"Shirley, you talk nonsense."
"_He_ talked nonsense--that I doubt not; or he looked it, which is a
thousand times worse. I see the reflection of his eyes on your forehead
at this moment. I feel disposed to call him out, if I could only get a
trustworthy second. I feel desperately irritated. I felt so last night,
and have felt it all day."
"You don't ask me why," she proceeded, after a pause, "you little
silent, over-modest thing; and you don't deserve that I should pour out
my secrets into your lap without an invitation. Upon my word, I could
have found it in my heart to have dogged Moore yesterday evening with
dire intent. I have pistols, and can use them."
"Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot--me or Robert?"
"Neither, perhaps. Perhaps myself--more likely a bat or a tree-bough. He
is a puppy, your cousin--a quiet, serious, sensible, judicious,
ambitious puppy. I see him standing before me, talking his half-stern,
half-gentle talk, bearing me down (as I am very conscious he does) with
his fixity of purpose, etc.; and then--I have no patience with him!"
Miss Keeldar started off on a rapid walk through the room, repeating
energetically that she had no patience with men in general, and with her
tenant in particular.
"You are mistaken," urged Caroline, in some anxiety. "Robert is no puppy
or male flirt; I can vouch for that."
"_You_ vouch for it! Do you think I'll take your word on the subject?
There is no one's testimony I would not credit sooner than yours. To
advance Moore's fortune you would cut off your right hand."
"But not tell lies. And if I speak the truth, I must assure you that he
was just civil to me last night--that was all."
"I never asked what he was. I can guess. I saw him from the window take
your hand in his long fingers, just as he went out at my gate."
"That is nothing. I am not a stranger, you know. I am an old
acquaintance, and his cousin."
"I feel indignant, and that is the long and short of the matter,"
responded Miss Keeldar. "All my comfort," she added presently, "is
broken up by his manœuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me.
Without him we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood
makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again
he crosses and obscures the disc I want always to see clear; ever and
anon he renders me to you a mere bore and nuisance."
"No, Shirley, no."
"He does. You did not want my society this afternoon, and I feel it
hard. You are naturally somewhat reserved, but I am a social personage,
who cannot live alone. If we were but left unmolested, I have that
regard for you that I could bear you in my presence for ever, and not
for the fraction of a second do I ever wish to be rid of you. You cannot
say as much respecting me."
"Shirley, I can say anything you wish. Shirley, I like you."
"You will wish me at Jericho to-morrow, Lina."
"I shall not. I am every day growing more accustomed to--fonder of you.
You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once;
but you are so much better than common--you are so different to
every-day young ladies--I esteem you, I value you; you are never a
burden to me--never. Do you believe what I say?"
"Partly," replied Miss Keeldar, smiling rather incredulously; "but you
are a peculiar personage. Quiet as you look, there is both a force and a
depth somewhere within not easily reached or appreciated. Then you
certainly are not happy."
"And unhappy people are rarely good. Is that what you mean?"
"Not at all. I mean rather that unhappy people are often preoccupied,
and not in the mood for discoursing with companions of my nature.
Moreover, there is a sort of unhappiness which not only depresses, but
corrodes; and that, I fear, is your portion. Will pity do you any good,
Lina? If it will, take some from Shirley; she offers largely, and
warrants the article genuine."
"Shirley, I never had a sister--you never had a sister; but it flashes
on me at this moment how sisters feel towards each other--affection
twined with their life, which no shocks of feeling can uproot, which
little quarrels only trample an instant, that it may spring more freshly
when the pressure is removed; affection that no passion can ultimately
outrival, with which even love itself cannot do more than compete in
force and truth. Love hurts us so, Shirley. It is so tormenting, so
racking, and it burns away our strength with its flame. In affection is
no pain and no fire, only sustenance and balm. I am supported and
soothed when you--that is, _you only_--are near, Shirley. Do you
believe me now?"
"I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me. We really are
friends, then, Lina, in spite of the black eclipse?"
"We really are," returned the other, drawing Shirley towards her, and
making her sit down, "chance what may."
"Come, then; we will talk of something else than the Troubler." But at
this moment the rector came in, and the "something else" of which Miss
Keeldar was about to talk was not again alluded to till the moment of
her departure. She then delayed a few minutes in the passage to say,
"Caroline, I wish to tell you that I have a great weight on my mind; my
conscience is quite uneasy as if I had committed, or was going to
commit, a crime. It is not my _private_ conscience, you must understand,
but my landed-proprietor and lord-of-the-manor conscience. I have got
into the clutch of an eagle with iron talons. I have fallen under a
stern influence, which I scarcely approve, but cannot resist. Something
will be done ere long, I fear, which it by no means pleases me to think
of. To ease my mind, and to prevent harm as far as I can, I mean to
enter on a series of good works. Don't be surprised, therefore, if you
see me all at once turn outrageously charitable. I have no idea how to
begin, but you must give me some advice. We will talk more on the
subject to-morrow; and just ask that excellent person, Miss Ainley, to
step up to Fieldhead. I have some notion of putting myself under her
tuition. Won't she have a precious pupil? Drop a hint to her, Lina,
that, though a well-meaning, I am rather a neglected character, and then
she will feel less scandalized at my ignorance about clothing societies
and such things."
On the morrow Caroline found Shirley sitting gravely at her desk, with
an account-book, a bundle of banknotes, and a well-filled purse before
her. She was looking mighty serious, but a little puzzled. She said she
had been "casting an eye" over the weekly expenditure in housekeeping at
the hall, trying to find out where she could retrench; that she had also
just given audience to Mrs. Gill, the cook, and had sent that person
away with a notion that her (Shirley's) brain was certainly crazed. "I
have lectured her on the duty of being careful," said she, "in a way
quite new to her. So eloquent was I on the text of economy that I
surprised myself; for, you see, it is altogether a fresh idea. I never
thought, much less spoke, on the subject till lately. But it is all
theory; for when I came to the practical part I could retrench nothing.
I had not firmness to take off a single pound of butter, or to prosecute
to any clear result an inquest into the destiny of either dripping,