Shirley
"Very well, what of that? I shall walk home with you."
"They will miss you, and wonder where you are."
"Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose."
Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and
dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had furnished him with an
adventure. It was better than muffins and toast.
He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised to see Mr. Moore,
in spite of the dragon who guarded his chamber, and appointed an hour on
the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get
tidings of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme led to
nothing; still he liked it.
Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly
administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at an early hour. He
accepted his punishment with the toughest stoicism.
Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room,
a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom used, for the family
customarily dined in the back parlour. He stood before the mantelpiece,
and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above--female heads: one, a
type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but
forlorn and desperate.
"She looked like _that_," he said, gazing on the latter sketch, "when
she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against the tree."
"I suppose," he pursued, when he was in his room, and seated on the edge
of his pallet-bed--"I suppose she is what they call '_in love_'--yes,
_in love_ with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that
Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds
as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making
the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was
boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah)--Zillah Horsfall is a
woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the
same species--not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that
Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at--something so clear in
her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me; it does
me good. She has long eyelashes. Their shadow seems to rest where she
gazes, and to instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and
continues to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her a good
turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing my mother and that
ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like humouring Moore; but whatever I do
I'll be paid for, and in coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I
will claim--one displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself."
He turned into bed.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MARTIN'S TACTICS.
It was necessary to the arrangement of Martin's plan that he should stay
at home that day. Accordingly, he found no appetite for breakfast, and
just about school-time took a severe pain about his heart, which
rendered it advisable that, instead of setting out to the grammar school
with Mark, he should succeed to his father's arm-chair by the fireside,
and also to his morning paper. This point being satisfactorily settled,
and Mark being gone to Mr. Summer's class, and Matthew and Mr. Yorke
withdrawn to the counting-house, three other exploits--nay,
four--remained to be achieved.
The first of these was to realize the breakfast he had not yet tasted,
and with which his appetite of fifteen could ill afford to dispense; the
second, third, fourth, to get his mother, Miss Moore, and Mrs. Horsfall
successfully out of the way before four o'clock that afternoon.
The first was, for the present, the most pressing, since the work before
him demanded an amount of energy which the present empty condition of
his youthful stomach did not seem likely to supply.
Martin knew the way to the larder, and knowing this way he took it. The
servants were in the kitchen, breakfasting solemnly with closed doors;
his mother and Miss Moore were airing themselves on the lawn, and
discussing the closed doors aforesaid. Martin, safe in the larder, made
fastidious selection from its stores. His breakfast had been delayed; he
was determined it should be _recherché_. It appeared to him that a
variety on his usual somewhat insipid fare of bread and milk was both
desirable and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought might
be combined. There was store of rosy apples laid in straw upon a shelf;
he picked out three. There was pastry upon a dish; he selected an
apricot puff and a damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye
did not dwell; but he surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes, and
condescended to make choice of one. Thanks to his clasp-knife, he was
able to appropriate a wing of fowl and a slice of ham; a cantlet of cold
custard-pudding he thought would harmonize with these articles; and
having made this final addition to his booty, he at length sallied forth
into the hall.
He was already half-way across--three steps more would have anchored him
in the harbour of the back parlour--when the front door opened, and
there stood Matthew. Better far had it been the Old Gentleman, in full
equipage of horns, hoofs, and tail.
Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt
belief in that pain about the heart. He had muttered some words, amongst
which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible,
and the succession to the armchair and newspaper had appeared to affect
him with mental spasms. The spectacle now before him--the apples, the
tarts, the tea-cakes, the fowl, ham, and pudding--offered evidence but
too well calculated to inflate his opinion of his own sagacity.
Martin paused _interdit_ one minute, one instant; the next he knew his
ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity _des âmes
élites_, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be
turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to
secure the accomplishment of his second task--namely, the disposal of
his mother. He knew that a collision between him and Matthew always
suggested to Mrs. Yorke the propriety of a fit of hysterics. He further
knew that, on the principle of calm succeeding to storm, after a morning
of hysterics his mother was sure to indulge in an afternoon of bed. This
would accommodate him perfectly.
The collision duly took place in the hall. A dry laugh, an insulting
sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met by a nonchalant but most cutting reply,
were the signals. They rushed at it. Martin, who usually made little
noise on these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the servants,
Mrs. Yorke, Miss Moore. No female hand could separate them. Mr. Yorke
was summoned.
"Sons," said he, "one of you must leave my roof if this occurs again. I
will have no Cain and Abel strife here."
Martin now allowed himself to be taken off. He had been hurt; he was the
youngest and slightest. He was quite cool, in no passion; he even
smiled, content that the most difficult part of the labour he had set
himself was over.
Once he seemed to flag in the course of the morning.
"It is not worth while to bother myself for that Caroline," he remarked.
But a quarter of an hour afterwards he was again in the dining-room,
looking at the head with dishevelled tresses, and eyes turbid with
despair.
"Yes," he said, "I made her sob, shudder, almost faint. I'll see her
smile before I've done with her; besides, I want to outwit all these
womenites."
Directly after dinner Mrs. Yorke fulfilled her son's calculation by
withdrawing to her chamber. Now for Hortense.
That lady was just comfortably settled to stocking-mending in the back
parlour, when Martin--laying down a book which, stretched on the sofa
(he was still indisposed, according to his own account), he had been
perusing in all the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha--lazily
introduced some discourse about Sarah, the maid at the Hollow. In the
course of much verbal meandering he insinuated information that this
damsel was said to have three suitors--Frederic Murgatroyd, Jeremiah
Pighills, and John-of-Mally's-of-Hannah's-of-Deb's; and that Miss Mann
had affirmed she knew for a fact that, now the girl was left in sole
charge of the cottage, she often had her swains to meals, and
entertained them with the best the house afforded.
It needed no more. Hortense could not have lived another hour without
betaking herself to the scene of these nefarious transactions, and
inspecting the state of matters in person. Mrs. Horsfall remained.
Martin, master of the field now, extracted from his mother's work-basket
a bunch of keys; with these he opened the sideboard cupboard, produced
thence a black bottle and a small glass, placed them on the table,
nimbly mounted the stairs, made for Mr. Moore's door, tapped; the nurse
opened.
"If you please, ma'am, you are invited to step into the back parlour and
take some refreshment. You will not be disturbed; the family are out."
He watched her down; he watched her in; himself shut the door. He knew
she was safe.
The hard work was done; now for the pleasure. He snatched his cap, and
away for the wood.
It was yet but half-past three. It had been a fine morning, but the sky
looked dark now. It was beginning to snow; the wind blew cold; the wood
looked dismal, the old tree grim. Yet Martin approved the shadow on his
path. He found a charm in the spectral aspect of the doddered oak.
He had to wait. To and fro he walked, while the flakes fell faster; and
the wind, which at first had but moaned, pitifully howled.
"She is long in coming," he muttered, as he glanced along the narrow
track. "I wonder," he subjoined, "what I wish to see her so much for?
She is not coming for me. But I have power over her, and I want her to
come that I may use that power."
He continued his walk.
"Now," he resumed, when a further period had elapsed, "if she fails to
come, I shall hate and scorn her."
It struck four. He heard the church clock far away. A step so quick, so
light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have
sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew fiercely
now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she came,
and not dismayed.
"Well, Martin," she said eagerly, "how is he?"
"It is queer how she thinks of _him_," reflected Martin. "The blinding
snow and bitter cold are nothing to her, I believe; yet she is but a
'chitty-faced creature,' as my mother would say. I could find in my
heart to wish I had a cloak to wrap her in."
Thus meditating to himself, he neglected to answer Miss Helstone.
"You have seen him?"
"No."
"Oh! you promised you would."
"I mean to do better by you than that. Didn't I say _I_ don't care to
see him?"
"But now it will be so long before I get to know any thing certain about
him, and I am sick of waiting. Martin, _do_ see him, and give him
Caroline Helstone's regards, and say she wished to know how he was, and
if anything could be done for his comfort."
"I won't."
"You are changed. You were so friendly last night."
"Come, we must not stand in this wood; it is too cold."
"But before I go promise me to come again to-morrow with news."
"No such thing. I am much too delicate to make and keep such
appointments in the winter season. If you knew what a pain I had in my
chest this morning, and how I went without breakfast, and was knocked
down besides, you'd feel the impropriety of bringing me here in the
snow. Come, I say."
"Are you really delicate, Martin?"
"Don't I look so?"
"You have rosy cheeks."
"That's hectic. Will you come--or you won't?"
"Where?"
"With me. I was a fool not to bring a cloak. I would have made you
cosy."
"You are going home; my nearest road lies in the opposite direction."