Shirley
residence. Henry Shirley Keeldar I said I would be called; and I will.
Her name and her manor house are ages old, and Sympson and Sympson Grove
are of yesterday."
"Come, you are neither of you going to heaven yet. I have the best hopes
of you both, with your proud distinctions--a pair of half-fledged
eaglets. Now, what is your inference from all you have told me? Put it
into words."
"That Shirley thinks she is going to die."
"She referred to her health?"
"Not once; but I assure you she is wasting. Her hands are grown quite
thin, and so is her cheek."
"Does she ever complain to your mother or sisters?"
"Never. She laughs at them when they question her. Mr. Moore, she is a
strange being, so fair and girlish--not a man-like woman at all, not an
Amazon, and yet lifting her head above both help and sympathy."
"Do you know where she is now, Henry? Is she in the house, or riding
out?"
"Surely not out, sir. It rains fast."
"True; which, however, is no guarantee that she is not at this moment
cantering over Rushedge. Of late she has never permitted weather to be a
hindrance to her rides."
"You remember, Mr. Moore, how wet and stormy it was last Wednesday--so
wild, indeed, that she would not permit Zoë to be saddled? Yet the blast
she thought too tempestuous for her mare she herself faced on foot; that
afternoon she walked nearly as far as Nunnely. I asked her, when she
came in, if she was not afraid of taking cold. 'Not I,' she said. 'It
would be too much good luck for me. I don't know, Harry, but the best
thing that could happen to me would be to take a good cold and fever,
and so pass off like other Christians.' She is reckless, you see, sir."
"Reckless indeed! Go and find out where she is, and if you can get an
opportunity of speaking to her without attracting attention, request her
to come here a minute."
"Yes, sir."
He snatched his crutch, and started up to go.
"Harry!"
He returned.
"Do not deliver the message formally. Word it as, in former days, you
would have worded an ordinary summons to the schoolroom."
"I see, sir. She will be more likely to obey."
"And, Harry----"
"Sir?"
"I will call you when I want you. Till then, you are dispensed from
lessons."
He departed. Mr. Moore, left alone, rose from his desk.
"I can be very cool and very supercilious with Henry," he said. "I can
seem to make light of his apprehensions, and look down _du haut de ma
grandeur_ on his youthful ardour. To _him_ I can speak as if, in my
eyes, they were both children. Let me see if I can keep up the same rôle
with her. I have known the moment when I seemed about to forget it, when
Confusion and Submission seemed about to crush me with their soft
tyranny, when my tongue faltered, and I have almost let the mantle drop,
and stood in her presence, not master--no--but something else. I trust I
shall never so play the fool. It is well for a Sir Philip Nunnely to
redden when he meets her eye. He may permit himself the indulgence of
submission. He may even, without disgrace, suffer his hand to tremble
when it touches hers; but if one of her farmers were to show himself
susceptible and sentimental, he would merely prove his need of a strait
waistcoat. So far I have always done very well. She has sat near me, and
I have not shaken--more than my desk. I have encountered her looks and
smiles like--why, like a tutor, as I am. Her hand I never yet
touched--never underwent that test. Her farmer or her footman I am
not--no serf nor servant of hers have I ever been; but I am poor, and it
behoves me to look to my self-respect--not to compromise an inch of it.
What did she mean by that allusion to the cold people who petrify flesh
to marble? It pleased me--I hardly know why; I would not permit myself
to inquire. I never do indulge in scrutiny either of her language or
countenance; for if I did, I should sometimes forget common sense and
believe in romance. A strange, secret ecstasy steals through my veins at
moments. I'll not encourage--I'll not remember it. I am resolved, as
long as may be, to retain the right to say with Paul, 'I am not mad, but
speak forth the words of truth and soberness.'"
He paused, listening.
"Will she come, or will she not come?" he inquired. "How will she take
the message? Naïvely or disdainfully? Like a child or like a queen? Both
characters are in her nature.
"If she comes, what shall I say to her? How account, firstly, for the
freedom of the request? Shall I apologize to her? I could in all
humility; but would an apology tend to place us in the positions we
ought relatively to occupy in this matter? I _must_ keep up the
professor, otherwise---- I hear a door."
He waited. Many minutes passed.
"She will refuse me. Henry is entreating her to come; she declines. My
petition is presumption in her eyes. Let her _only_ come, I can teach
her to the contrary. I would rather she were a little perverse; it will
steel me. I prefer her cuirassed in pride, armed with a taunt. Her scorn
startles me from my dreams; I stand up myself. A sarcasm from her eyes
or lips puts strength into every nerve and sinew I have. Some step
approaches, and not Henry's."
The door unclosed; Miss Keeldar came in. The message, it appeared, had
found her at her needle; she brought her work in her hand. That day she
had not been riding out; she had evidently passed it quietly. She wore
her neat indoor dress and silk apron. This was no Thalestris from the
fields, but a quiet domestic character from the fireside. Mr. Moore had
her at advantage. He should have addressed her at once in solemn
accents, and with rigid mien. Perhaps he would, had she looked saucy;
but her air never showed less of _crânerie_. A soft kind of youthful
shyness depressed her eyelid and mantled on her cheek. The tutor stood
silent.
She made a full stop between the door and his desk.
"Did you want me, sir?" she asked.
"I ventured, Miss Keeldar, to send for you--that is, to ask an interview
of a few minutes."
She waited; she plied her needle.
"Well, sir" (not lifting her eyes), "what about?"
"Be seated first. The subject I would broach is one of some moment.
Perhaps I have hardly a right to approach it. It is possible I ought to
frame an apology; it is possible no apology can excuse me. The liberty I
have taken arises from a conversation with Henry. The boy is unhappy
about your health; all your friends are unhappy on that subject. It is
of your health I would speak."
"I am quite well," she said briefly.
"Yet changed."
"That matters to none but myself. We all change."
"Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had some influence with
you: have I any now? May I feel that what I am saying is not accounted
positive presumption?"
"Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, or I will even take a spell at the
Latin grammar, and let us proclaim a truce to all sanitary discussions."
"No, no. It is time there were discussions."
"Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your text. I am a healthy
subject."
"Do you not think it wrong to affirm and reaffirm what is substantially
untrue?"
"I say I am well. I have neither cough, pain, nor fever."
"Is there no equivocation in that assertion? Is it the direct truth?"
"The direct truth."
Louis Moore looked at her earnestly.
"I can myself," he said, "trace no indications of actual disease. But
why, then, are you altered?"
"_Am_ I altered?"
"We will try. We will seek a proof."
"How?"
"I ask, in the first place, do you sleep as you used to?"
"I do not; but it is not because I am ill."
"Have you the appetite you once had?"
"No; but it is not because I am ill."
"You remember this little ring fastened to my watch-chain? It was my
mother's, and is too small to pass the joint of my little finger. You
have many a time sportively purloined it. It fitted your fore-finger.
Try now."
She permitted the test. The ring dropped from the wasted little hand.
Louis picked it up, and reattached it to the chain. An uneasy flush
coloured his brow. Shirley again said, "It is not because I am ill."
"Not only have you lost sleep, appetite, and flesh," proceeded Moore,
"but your spirits are always at ebb. Besides, there is a nervous alarm
in your eye, a nervous disquiet in your manner. These peculiarities were
not formerly yours."
"Mr. Moore, we will pause here. You have exactly hit it. I am nervous.
Now, talk of something else. What wet weather we have--steady, pouring
rain!"
"_You_ nervous? Yes; and if Miss Keeldar is nervous, it is not without a
cause. Let me reach it. Let me look nearer. The ailment is not physical.
I have suspected that. It came in one moment. I know the day. I noticed
the change. Your pain is mental."
"Not at all. It is nothing so dignified--merely nervous. Oh! dismiss the
topic."
"When it is exhausted; not till then. Nervous alarms should always be
communicated, that they may be dissipated. I wish I had the gift of
persuasion, and could incline you to speak willingly. I believe
confession, in your case, would be half equivalent to cure."
"No," said Shirley abruptly. "I wish that were at all probable; but I am
afraid it is not."
She suspended her work a moment. She was now seated. Resting her elbow
on the table, she leaned her head on her hand. Mr. Moore looked as if he
felt he had at last gained some footing in this difficult path. She was
serious, and in her wish was implied an important admission; after that
she could no longer affirm that _nothing_ ailed her.
The tutor allowed her some minutes for repose and reflection ere he
returned to the charge. Once his lips moved to speak, but he thought
better of it, and prolonged the pause. Shirley lifted her eye to his.
Had he betrayed injudicious emotion, perhaps obstinate persistence in
silence would have been the result; but he looked calm, strong,
trustworthy.
"I had better tell _you_ than my aunt," she said, "or than my cousins,
or my uncle. They would all make such a bustle, and it is that very
bustle I dread--the alarm, the flurry, the _éclat_. In short, I never
liked to be the centre of a small domestic whirlpool. You can bear a
little shock--eh?"
"A great one, if necessary."
Not a muscle of the man's frame moved, and yet his large heart beat fast
in his deep chest. What was she going to tell him? Was irremediable
mischief done?
"Had I thought it right to go to you, I would never have made a secret
of the matter one moment," she continued. "I would have told you at
once, and asked advice."
"Why was it not right to come to me?"
"It might be _right_--I do not mean that; but I could not do it. I
seemed to have no title to trouble you. The mishap concerned me only. I
wanted to keep it to myself, and people will not let me. I tell you, I
hate to be an object of worrying attention, or a theme for village
gossip. Besides, it may pass away without result--God knows!"
Moore, though tortured with suspense, did not demand a quick
explanation. He suffered neither gesture, glance, nor word to betray
impatience. His tranquillity tranquillized Shirley; his confidence
reassured her.
"Great effects may spring from trivial causes," she remarked, as she
loosened a bracelet from her wrist. Then, unfastening her sleeve, and
partially turning it up, "Look here, Mr. Moore."
She showed a mark in her white arm--rather a deep though healed-up
indentation--something between a burn and a cut.
"I would not show that to any one in Briarfield but you, because you can
take it quietly."
"Certainly there is nothing in the little mark to shock. Its history
will explain."
"Small as it is, it has taken my sleep away, and made me nervous, thin,
and foolish; because, on account of that little mark, I am obliged to