Shirley
with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.
"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit
face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is
Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I
shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."
"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and
leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne.
He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking
trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to
reassure him."
"It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.--John" (turning to
her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.--Take care, Mr.
Malone; the stairs are slippery."
In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little
late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was
only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the
whole structure creak again.
Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted
_éclat_, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no
coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed
him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have
strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness
in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar.
He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to
her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them
been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In
each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe
her to death.
However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too
true a lady to smile even at any one under mortification. Tartar was
dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed--for Shirley had looks and tones
that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could
not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he
tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently
_very_ civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the
express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough
portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that
passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like
March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.
For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit
in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat,--not on the
sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the
fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but
on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he
grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the
ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most
intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of
every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere he opened his
mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he
drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be
the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went
to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square
cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in
narrower compass; he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would
he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his throat--his
head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had
an inventive, an original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces
of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair
with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that attitude,
he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident
he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than
once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her
silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside,
that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features.
Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point in Peter's
demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of
his homage from herself to the heiress. The £5,000 he supposed her
likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against
Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his
calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he
wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly
relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to
succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful
management.
From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some
difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to descend. At length, however, that
gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour
door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused--not a
whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably
complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is insensible to shame.
He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his
nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make
colour mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no modesty in
his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the
commonplace--conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion
of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about the
business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of
a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion
was, when he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a
letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for
love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be master
of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his
command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not
have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an
impertinent, injured tone--"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I
wonder you should keep such an animal."
"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am
very fond of him."
"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady
fond of that brute--'tis so ugly--a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him."
"Hang what I am fond of!"
"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle--something
appropriate to the fair sex. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."
"Perhaps I am an exception."
"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That
is universally allowed."
"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any
harm."
"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When
I _sor_ him" (such was Mr. Donne's pronunciation) "about to spring, I
thought I should have fainted."
"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."
"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to
let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the
enemy."
"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"
"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at
last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been
assured of this, I would have remained all day in the chamber. But what
is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"
And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening to the garden,
stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour.
He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an
inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry.
"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking
coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show
while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the
pavement towards the gate, bellowing _avec explosion_. His mistress
quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His
bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt,
stupid head to the new callers to be patted.
"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you
know us? Good-morning, old boy!"
And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him
comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the
gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no
fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed
both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were
harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew to the sunny front
of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would
have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was
only his mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all others he
showed himself obstinately insensible.
Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with
them cordially. They were come to tell her of certain successes they had
achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr.
Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face
looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who
was come, ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed
down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him
the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.
Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the
ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day;
the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their
ringlets. Both of them looked pretty--one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest
to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one.
Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the profusely blooming flowers whose
perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling her to
choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and
splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The
vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.
Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected
pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar,
who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun.
Donne was not grateful--he never _was_ grateful for kindness and
attention--but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of
being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted them with
native awkwardness. Malone seemed specially at a loss, when a bouquet
filled one hand, while his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank
you!" was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of sounds,
implying that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an
attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his
priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart,
sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into
his buttonhole.
As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning him apart,
gave him some commission, which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he
flew, round by the courtyard to the kitchen. No need to give him
directions; he was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared,
carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he