Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .txt) 📖

impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted[Pg 246] 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 collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and bowers in the grounds, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid—Miss Keeldar kept no footman—came out, bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's nimble fingers aided in disposing glasses, plates, knives, and forks; he assisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting of cold chicken, ham, and tarts.

This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight to offer any chance guests; and nothing pleased her better than to have an alert, obliging little friend, like Sweeting, to run about her hand, cheerily receive and briskly execute her hospitable hints. David and she were on the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes.

The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone, indeed, contributed but little to its vivacity, the chief part they played in it being what concerned the knife, fork, and wine-glass; but where four such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were assembled in health and amity, on a green lawn, under a sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be ungenial dullness.

In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united Sunday-school tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield, Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at her post as teacher,[Pg 247] he said, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be wanting. He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of this sort. She liked festive excitement, a gathering of happiness, a concentration and combination of pleasant details, a throng of glad faces, a muster of elated hearts. She told Mr. Hall they might count on her with security. She did not know what she would have to do, but they might dispose of her as they pleased.

"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to my table, and to sit near me, Mr. Hall?"

"I shall not fail, Deo volente," said he.—"I have occupied the place on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six years," he proceeded, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not particularly self-confident by nature, as you may have observed; and the first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is, and make tea in public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the speechless panic, the cups shaking in the little hand, and the overflowing teapot filled too full from the urn. I came to her aid, took a seat near her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made the tea for her like any old woman."

"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.

"You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well, inasmuch as it was not like the majority of little ladies of twelve, whom you may help and caress for ever without their evincing any quicker sense of the kindness done and meant than if they were made of wax and wood instead of flesh and nerves.—She kept close to me, Miss Keeldar, the rest of the evening, walking with me over the grounds where the children were playing; she followed me into the vestry when all were summoned into church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to the pulpit, had I not taken the previous precaution of conducting her to the rectory pew."

"And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline.

"And always sat at her table, near her tray, and handed the cups—that is the extent of my services. The next thing I do for her will be to marry her some day to some curate or mill-owner.—But mind, Caroline, I shall inquire about the bridegroom's character; and if he is not a gentleman likely to render happy the little girl who walked with[Pg 248] me hand in hand over Nunnely Common, I will not officiate. So take care."

"The caution is useless. I am not going to be married. I shall live single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall."

"Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy. She has her books for a pleasure, and her brother for a care, and is content. If ever you want a home, if the day should come when Briarfield rectory is yours no longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. Should the old maid and bachelor be still living, they will make you tenderly welcome."

"There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, who had kept the nosegay she had selected for him till this moment, "you don't care for a bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only—to be sentimental for once—keep that little forget-me-not, which is a wild flower I gathered from the grass; and—to be still more sentimental—let me take two or three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir."

And she took out a small book with enamelled cover and silver clasp, wherein, having opened it, she inserted the flowers, writing round them in pencil, "To be kept for the sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend. May —, 18—."

The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, also placed a sprig in safety between the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only wrote on the margin, "Caroline."

"Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic enough. Miss Keeldar," he continued (the curates, by-the-bye, during this conversation, were too much occupied with their own jokes to notice what passed at the other end of the table), "I hope you are laughing at this trait of 'exaltation' in the old gray-headed vicar; but the fact is, I am so used to comply with the requests of this young friend of yours, I don't know how to refuse her when she tells me to do anything. You would say it is not much in my way to traffic with flowers and forget-me-nots; but, you see, when requested to be sentimental, I am obedient."

"He is naturally rather sentimental," remarked Caroline. "Margaret told me so, and I know what pleases him."

"That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is one of my greatest pleasures. May God long preserve to you the blessings of peace and innocence! By which phrase I mean comparative innocence; for in His sight, I am well aware, none are pure. What to our human perceptions[Pg 249] looks spotless as we fancy angels, is to Him but frailty, needing the blood of His Son to cleanse, and the strength of His Spirit to sustain. Let us each and all cherish humility—I, as you, my young friends; and we may well do it when we look into our own hearts, and see there temptations, inconsistencies, propensities, even we blush to recognize. And it is not youth, nor good looks, nor grace, nor any gentle outside charm which makes either beauty or goodness in God's eyes.—Young ladies, when your mirror or men's tongues flatter you, remember that, in the sight of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley—a woman whom neither glass nor lips have ever panegyrized—is fairer and better than either of you. She is indeed," he added, after a pause—"she is indeed. You young things, wrapt up in yourselves and in earthly hopes, scarcely live as Christ lived. Perhaps you cannot do it yet, while existence is so sweet and earth so smiling to you; it would be too much to expect. She, with meek heart and due reverence, treads close in her Redeemer's steps."

Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in on the mild tones of Mr. Hall. "Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat evidently for a speech of some importance—"ahem! Miss Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you please."

"Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I listen. All of me is ear that is not eye."

"I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, in his vulgarly presumptuous and familiar style, "and part purse. It is to the hand and purse I propose to appeal. I came here this morning with a view to beg of you——"

"You should have gone to Mrs. Gill; she is my almoner."

"To beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr. Boultby intend to erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg, which is under our vicarage of Whinbury. The Baptists have got possession of it. They have a chapel there, and we want to dispute the ground."

"But I have nothing to do with Ecclefigg. I possess no property there."

"What does that signify? You're a churchwoman, ain't you?"

"Admirable creature!" muttered Shirley, under her breath. "Exquisite address! Fine style! What raptures he excites in me!" Then aloud, "I am a churchwoman, certainly."

"Then you can't refuse to contribute in this case. The[Pg 250] population of Ecclefigg are a parcel of brutes; we want to civilize them."

"Who is to be the missionary?"

"Myself, probably."

"You won't fail through lack of sympathy with your flock."

"I hope not—I expect success; but we must have money. There is the paper. Pray give a handsome sum."

When asked for money, Shirley rarely held back. She put down her name for £5. After the £300 she had lately given, and the many smaller sums she was giving constantly, it was as much as she could at present afford. Donne looked at it, declared the subscription "shabby," and clamorously demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with some indignation and more astonishment.

"At present I shall give no more," said she.

"Not give more! Why, I expected you to head the list with a cool hundred. With your property, you should never put down a signature for less."

She was silent.

"In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand a year would be ashamed to give five pounds for a public object."

Shirley, so rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame became nerved; her distinguished face quickened with scorn.

"Strange remarks?" said she—"most inconsiderate! Reproach in return for bounty is misplaced."

"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"

"I do; and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended school, of the erection of which I approve, and in no sort to his curate, who seems ill-advised in his manner of applying for, or rather extorting, subscriptions—bounty, I repeat, which, but for this consideration, I should instantly reclaim."

Donne was thick-skinned. He did not feel all or half that the tone, air, glance of the speaker expressed. He knew not on what ground he stood.

"Wretched place this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could never have formed an idear of the country had I not seen it. And the people—rich and poor—what a set! How corse and uncultivated! They would be scouted in the south."

Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating[Pg 251] a little, her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard.

"The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious Donne, "are a parcel of misers, never living as persons with their incomes ought to live. You scarsley"—(you must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself on his southern accent; northern ears received with singular sensations his utterance of certain words)—"you scarsley ever see a fam'ly where a propa carriage or a reg'la butla is kep; and as to the poor—just look at them when they come crowding about the church doors on the occasion of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; the men in their shirt-sleeves and wool-combers' aprons, the women in mob-caps and bed-gowns. They positively deserve that one should turn a mad cow in amongst them to rout their rabble-ranks. He-he! what fun it would be!"

"There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley quietly. "You have reached the climax," she repeated, turning her glowing glance towards him. "You cannot go beyond it, and," she added with emphasis, "you shall not, in my house."

Up she rose—nobody could control her now, for she was exasperated—straight she walked to