Shirley
A calm day had settled into a crystalline evening. The world wore a
North Pole colouring; all its lights and tints looked like the
_reflets_[A] of white, or violet, or pale green gems. The hills wore a
lilac blue; the setting sun had purple in its red; the sky was ice, all
silvered azure; when the stars rose, they were of white crystal, not
gold; gray, or cerulean, or faint emerald hues--cool, pure, and
transparent--tinged the mass of the landscape.
[A] Find me an English word as good, reader, and I will gladly
dispense with the French word. "Reflections" won't do.
What is this by itself in a wood no longer green, no longer even russet,
a wood neutral tint--this dark blue moving object? Why, it is a
schoolboy--a Briarfield grammar-school boy--who has left his companions,
now trudging home by the highroad, and is seeking a certain tree, with a
certain mossy mound at its root, convenient as a seat. Why is he
lingering here? The air is cold and the time wears late. He sits down.
What is he thinking about? Does he feel the chaste charm Nature wears
to-night? A pearl-white moon smiles through the gray trees; does he care
for her smile?
Impossible to say; for he is silent, and his countenance does not speak.
As yet it is no mirror to reflect sensation, but rather a mask to
conceal it. This boy is a stripling of fifteen--slight, and tall of his
years. In his face there is as little of amenity as of servility, his
eye seems prepared to note any incipient attempt to control or overreach
him, and the rest of his features indicate faculties alert for
resistance. Wise ushers avoid unnecessary interference with that lad.
To break him in by severity would be a useless attempt; to win him by
flattery would be an effort worse than useless. He is best let alone.
Time will educate and experience train him.
Professedly Martin Yorke (it is a young Yorke, of course) tramples on
the name of poetry. Talk sentiment to him, and you would be answered by
sarcasm. Here he is, wandering alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while
she unfolds a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry beneath his
attentive gaze.
Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book--not the Latin grammar,
but a contraband volume of fairy tales. There will be light enough yet
for an hour to serve his keen young vision. Besides, the moon waits on
him; her beam, dim and vague as yet, fills the glade where he sits.
He reads. He is led into a solitary mountain region; all round him is
rude and desolate, shapeless, and almost colourless. He hears bells
tinkle on the wind. Forth-riding from the formless folds of the mist
dawns on him the brightest vision--a green-robed lady, on a snow-white
palfrey. He sees her dress, her gems, and her steed. She arrests him
with some mysterious question. He is spell-bound, and must follow her
into fairyland.
A second legend bears him to the sea-shore. There tumbles in a strong
tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs. It rains and blows. A reef of
rocks, black and rough, stretches far into the sea. All along, and
among, and above these crags dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells,
wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these
rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed; glancing down
into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep and emerald clear, and
seeing there wilder and stranger and huger vegetation than is found on
land, with treasure of shells--some green, some purple, some
pearly--clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry.
Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall,
pale thing--shaped like man, but made of spray--transparent, tremulous,
awful. It stands not alone. They are all human figures that wanton in
the rocks--a crowd of foam-women--a band of white, evanescent Nereids.
Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. He
listens. No--yes. Once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on
the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues
forth.
She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin
never met a lady in this wood before--nor any female, save, now and
then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does
not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither
old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now
recognizes her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he
would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of
that veil.
She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud
monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline
Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady
retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil,
reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are you one of
Mr. Yorke's sons?"
No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke
that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.
"I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder,
superciliously, what would come next.
"You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that followed.
It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence--very
artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the
youth's nature. It stilled him like a note of music.
Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and
sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like
his father, he hated ceremony. It was acceptable to hear a lady address
him as "Martin," and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would
have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than
ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity. The slight tone
of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered
perfectly in place.
"I am Martin," he said.
"Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she did not say _papa_
and _mamma_; that would have undone all); "and Rose and Jessie?"
"I suppose so."
"My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?"
"Oh yes."
Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan. The half-smile was
responded to by the lady, who could guess in what sort of odour Hortense
was likely to be held by the young Yorkes.
"Does your mother like her?"
"They suit so well about the servants they can't help liking each
other."
"It is cold to-night."
"Why are you out so late?"
"I lost my way in this wood."
Now, indeed, Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh of scorn.
"Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains! You deserve never
more to find it."
"I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing now. You might
inform against me if you chose, Martin, and have me fined. It is your
father's wood."
"I should think I knew that. But since you are so simple as to lose your
way, I will guide you out."
"You need not. I have got into the track now. I shall be right. Martin"
(a little quickly), "how is Mr. Moore?"
Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that it might be amusing
to make an experiment.
"Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung overboard!"
She put her veil aside. She looked into his eyes, and said, "To die!"
"To die. All along of the women, my mother and the rest. They did
something about his bandages that finished everything. He would have got
better but for them. I am sure they should be arrested, cribbed, tried,
and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least."
The questioner, perhaps, did nor hear this judgment. She stood
motionless. In two minutes, without another word, she moved forwards; no
good-night, no further inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin
had calculated on. He expected something dramatic and demonstrative. It
was hardly worth while to frighten the girl if she would not entertain
him in return. He called, "Miss Helstone!"
She did not hear or turn. He hastened after and overtook her.
"Come; are you uneasy about what I said?"
"You know nothing about death, Martin; you are too young for me to talk
to concerning such a thing."
"Did you believe me? It's all flummery! Moore eats like three men. They
are always making sago or tapioca or something good for him. I never go
into the kitchen but there is a saucepan on the fire, cooking him some
dainty. I think I will play the old soldier, and be fed on the fat of
the land like him."
"Martin! Martin!" Here her voice trembled, and she stopped.
"It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have almost killed me."
Again she stopped. She leaned against a tree, trembling, shuddering, and
as pale as death.
Martin contemplated her with inexpressible curiosity. In one sense it
was, as he would have expressed it, "nuts" to him to see this. It told
him so much, and he was beginning to have a great relish for discovering
secrets. In another sense it reminded him of what he had once felt when
he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had
crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Unable to
find anything very appropriate to _say_ in order to comfort her, he
began to cast about in his mind what he could _do_. He smiled. The lad's
smile gave wondrous transparency to his physiognomy.
"Eureka!" he cried. "I'll set all straight by-and-by. You are better
now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward," he urged.
Not reflecting that it would be more difficult for Miss Helstone than
for himself to climb a wall or penetrate a hedge, he piloted her by a
short cut which led to no gate. The consequence was he had to help her
over some formidable obstacles, and while he railed at her for
helplessness, he perfectly liked to feel himself of use.
"Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, and on your word of
honour, that Mr. Moore is better."
"How very much you think of that Moore!"
"No--but--many of his friends may ask me, and I wish to be able to give
an authentic answer."
"You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You may tell them that
he takes mutton chops for dinner, and the best of arrowroot for supper.
I intercepted a basin myself one night on its way upstairs, and ate half
of it."
"And who waits on him, Martin? who nurses him?"
"Nurses him? The great baby! Why, a woman as round and big as our
largest water-butt--a rough, hard-favoured old girl. I make no doubt
she leads him a rich life. Nobody else is let near him. He is chiefly in
the dark. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in that chamber.
I listen at the wall sometimes when I am in bed, and I think I hear her
thumping him. You should see her fist. She could hold half a dozen hands
like yours in her one palm. After all, notwithstanding the chops and
jellies he gets, I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is my private
opinion that she eats most of what goes up on the tray to Mr. Moore. I
wish she may not be starving him."
Profound silence and meditation on Caroline's part, and a sly
watchfulness on Martin's.
"You never see him, I suppose, Martin?"
"I? No. I don't care to see him, for my own part."
Silence again.
"Did not you come to our house once with Mrs. Pryor, about five weeks
since, to ask after him?" again inquired Martin.
"Yes."
"I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?"
"We _did_ wish it. We entreated it; but your mother declined."
"Ay! she declined. I heard it all. She treated you as it is her pleasure
to treat visitors now and then. She behaved to you rudely and harshly."
"She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations, and it is
natural we should take an interest in Mr. Moore. But here we must part;
we are at your father's gate."