Shirley
"Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did you think I could be
daily in the habit of seeing you and your daughter together--marking
your marvellous similarity in many points, observing (pardon me) your
irrepressible emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of
your child--and not form my own conjectures? I formed them, and they are
literally correct. I shall begin to think myself shrewd."
"And you said nothing?" observed Caroline, who soon regained the quiet
control of her feelings.
"Nothing. I had no warrant to breathe a word on the subject. _My_
business it was not; I abstained from making it such."
"You guessed so deep a secret, and did not hint that you guessed it?"
"Is that so difficult?"
"It is not like you."
"How do you know?"
"You are not reserved; you are frankly communicative."
"I may be communicative, yet know where to stop. In showing my treasure
I may withhold a gem or two--a curious, unbought graven stone--an amulet
of whose mystic glitter I rarely permit even myself a glimpse.
Good-day."
Caroline thus seemed to get a view of Shirley's character under a novel
aspect. Ere long the prospect was renewed; it opened upon her.
No sooner had she regained sufficient strength to bear a change of
scene--the excitement of a little society--than Miss Keeldar sued daily
for her presence at Fieldhead. Whether Shirley had become wearied of her
honoured relatives is not known. She did not say she was; but she
claimed and retained Caroline with an eagerness which proved that an
addition to that worshipful company was not unwelcome.
The Sympsons were church people. Of course the rector's niece was
received by them with courtesy. Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of
spotless respectability, worrying temper, pious principles, and worldly
views; his lady was a very good woman--patient, kind, well-bred. She had
been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on a few
prejudices--a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few preferences, soaked
till their natural flavour was extracted, and with no seasoning added in
the cooking; some excellent principles, made up in a stiff raised crust
of bigotry difficult to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain
of this diet or to ask for a crumb beyond it.
The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with a Roman
nose apiece. They had been educated faultlessly. All they did was well
done. History and the most solid books had cultivated their minds.
Principles and opinions they possessed which could not be mended. More
exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it would have been
difficult to find anywhere. They knew by heart a certain
young-ladies'-schoolroom code of laws on language, demeanour, etc.;
themselves never deviated from its curious little pragmatical
provisions, and they regarded with secret whispered horror all
deviations in others. The Abomination of Desolation was no mystery to
them; they had discovered that unutterable Thing in the characteristic
others call Originality. Quick were they to recognize the signs of this
evil; and wherever they saw its trace--whether in look, word, or deed;
whether they read it in the fresh, vigorous style of a book, or listened
to it in interesting, unhackneyed, pure, expressive language--they
shuddered, they recoiled. Danger was above their heads, peril about
their steps. What was this strange thing? Being unintelligible it must
be bad. Let it be denounced and chained up.
Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child of the family, was a boy
of fifteen. He generally kept with his tutor. When he left him, he
sought his cousin Shirley. This boy differed from his sisters. He was
little, lame, and pale; his large eyes shone somewhat languidly in a wan
orbit. They were, indeed, usually rather dim, but they were capable of
illumination. At times they could not only shine, but blaze. Inward
emotion could likewise give colour to his cheek and decision to his
crippled movements. Henry's mother loved him; she thought his
peculiarities were a mark of election. He was not like other children,
she allowed. She believed him regenerate--a new Samuel--called of God
from his birth. He was to be a clergyman. Mr. and the Misses Sympson,
not understanding the youth, let him much alone. Shirley made him her
pet, and he made Shirley his playmate.
In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it, moved the
tutor--the satellite.
Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson--connected, yet
apart; ever attendant, ever distant. Each member of that correct family
treated him with proper dignity. The father was austerely civil,
sometimes irritable; the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but
formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed,
by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They
were learned; so was he--but not for them. They were accomplished; he
had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch
from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original
observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could
exceed the propriety of their behaviour.
I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but I remember a fact
which strangely astonished Caroline Helstone. It was--to discover that
her cousin had absolutely _no_ sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to
Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as
little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.
What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so
indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature thus isolated
under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never
noticed him--she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent,
and she rarely recognized his existence.
As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life,
and who had made up his mind to bear it for a time. His faculties seemed
walled up in him, and were unmurmuring in their captivity. He never
laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the round
of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he asked nothing more
than civility from the rest of the world. It even appeared that he would
accept nothing more--in that abode at least; for when his cousin
Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage
them--he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides
his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the
ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a
singular partiality for him--a partiality so marked that sometimes, when
Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed,
Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to
the taciturn tutor. Once--but once--she noticed the desertion, and
holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back.
Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet
disregarded the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches
at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman drew the dog's big, black-muzzled
head on to his knee, patted him, and smiled one little smile to himself.
An acute observer might have remarked, in the course of the same
evening, that after Tartar had resumed his allegiance to Shirley, and
was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one
word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the
word; he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly
depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the
significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face.
* * * * *
"Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the
summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your
uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"
Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually were, but at
last she answered, "Yes--of course; I knew it well."
"I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance."
"Well! what then?"
"It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never mentioned it to
me."
"Why should it puzzle you?"
"It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a great deal--you talk
freely. How was that circumstance never touched on?"
"Because it never was," and Shirley laughed.
"You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I thought I knew you
quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. You were silent as the
grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now again here is another secret. But why
you made it a secret is the mystery to me."
"I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing. If you had
asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I
thought you knew."
"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like
poor Louis. Why? Are you impatient at what you perhaps consider his
_servile_ position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly
placed?"
"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone like
the accents of scorn; and with a movement of proud impatience Shirley
snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice.
"Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's brother. He _is_
thus closely related to Gérard Moore of the Hollow, though nature has
not given him features so handsome or an air so noble as his kinsman;
but his blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he free."
"Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "Men and
angels, hear her! We should not despise plain features, nor a laborious
yet honest occupation, should we? Look at the subject of your panegyric.
He is there in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture
in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis Moore was
visible, coming slowly down the walk.
"He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is
sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and be
certain, if he had not something very commendable in his disposition,
Mr. Hall would never seek his society as he does."
Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a slightly sarcastic
sound. "Well, well," was her comment. "On the plea of the man being
Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his
existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you?
Not quite an idiot--eh? Something commendable in his disposition!--_id
est_, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight
with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will
speak to him."
He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it was tenanted, he sat
down on the step. Tartar, now his customary companion, had followed him,
and he couched across his feet.
"Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather the mutilated
remains of that organ, torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "the autumn
sun shines as pleasantly on us as on the fairest and richest. This
garden is none of ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't
we?"
He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with exceeding
affection. A faint twittering commenced among the trees round. Something
fluttered down as light as leaves. They were little birds, which,
lighting on the sward at shy distance, hopped as if expectant.
"The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day,"
again soliloquized Louis. "They want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot
to save a fragment. Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you."
He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty.