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

were talking about Mrs. Pryor. She must be the most unnatural mamma in existence, coolly to let her daughter come out in this weather. Mine was in such a rage because I would go to church; she was fit to fling the kitchen brush after me."

"Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I am afraid I was obstinate. I would go."

"To see me?"

"Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared the snow would hinder you from coming. You don't know how pleased I was to see you all by yourself in the pew."

"I came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good example. And so you were obstinate, were you? I should like to see you obstinate, I should. Wouldn't I have you in good discipline if I owned you? Let me take the umbrella."

"I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready."

"And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roast goose to-day, with apple-pie and rice-pudding. I always contrive to know the bill of fare. Well, I like these things uncommonly; but I'll make the sacrifice, if you will."

"We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary cooking on the Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if I failed to appear."

"So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my father sending out the overlooker and five of the dyers, to look in six directions for the body of his prodigal son in the[Pg 519] snow; and my mother repenting her of her many misdeeds towards me, now I am gone."

"Martin, how is Mr. Moore?"

"That is what you came for, just to say that word."

"Come, tell me quickly."

"Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever—mewed up, kept in solitary confinement. They mean to make either an idiot or a maniac of him, and take out a commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you saw how thin he was."

"You were very good the other day, Martin."

"What day? I am always good—a model."

"When will you be so good again?"

"I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me—I am no cat's-paw."

"But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a necessary thing."

"How you encroach! Remember, I managed the matter of my own free will before."

"And you will again."

"I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble. I like my ease."

"Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him."

"I dare say" (coolly).

"It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends."

"Tell her so."

"His own relations."

"Come and blow her up."

"You know that would advance nothing. Well, I shall stick to my point. See him I will. If you won't help me, I'll manage without help."

"Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence."

"I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking. Good-morning."

Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against the wind.

"She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like to watch, and mark how she will work her way without help. If the storm were not of snow, but of fire—such as came refreshingly down on the cities of the plain—she would go through it to procure five minutes' speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant[Pg 520] morning. The disappointments got time on; the fears and fits of anger only made that short discourse pleasanter, when it came at last. She expected to coax me at once. She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall come again, again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in a passion—to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go—what she will do and dare—to get her will. It seems strange and new to find one human being thinking so much about another as she thinks about Moore. But it is time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour. Won't I walk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or I shall get the largest cut of the apple-pie to-day."[Pg 521]

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CHAPTER XXXV.

WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH.

Martin had planned well. He had laid out a dexterously concerted scheme for his private amusement. But older and wiser schemers than he are often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by the sudden broom of Fate, that fell housewife whose red arm none can control. In the present instance this broom was manufactured out of the tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn purpose, bound tight with his will. He was now resuming his strength, and making strange head against Mrs. Horsfall. Each morning he amazed that matron with a fresh astonishment. First he discharged her from her valet duties; he would dress himself. Then he refused the coffee she brought him; he would breakfast with the family. Lastly, he forbade her his chamber. On the same day, amidst the outcries of all the women in the place, he put his head out of doors. The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his counting-house, and requested an envoy to fetch a chaise from the Red House Inn. He was resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr. Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The chaise was sent for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step would be his death. It came. Moore, little disposed to speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue. He expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the chink of his coin. The latter personage approved and understood this language perfectly; it made amends for all previous contumacy. She and her patient parted the best friends in the world.

The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself to the parlour. He had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite so easy a task as the pacification of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her thoughts.[Pg 522] He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up, if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty still in his pale, wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness—for he was smiling—in his hollow eyes.

"Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered and melted. He had no iron mastery of his sensations now; a trifling emotion made itself apparent in his present weak state.

"And what are you going to leave us for?" she asked. "We will keep you, and do anything in the world for you, if you will only stay till you are stronger."

"Good-bye!" he again said; and added, "You have been a mother to me; give your wilful son one embrace."

Like a foreigner, as he was, he offered her first one cheek, then the other. She kissed him.

"What a trouble—what a burden I have been to you!" he muttered.

"You are the worst trouble now, headstrong youth!" was the answer. "I wonder who is to nurse you at Hollow's Cottage? Your sister Hortense knows no more about such matters than a child."

"Thank God! for I have had nursing enough to last me my life."

Here the little girls came in—Jessie crying, Rose quiet but grave. Moore took them out into the hall to soothe, pet, and kiss them. He knew it was not in their mother's nature to bear to see any living thing caressed but herself. She would have felt annoyed had he fondled a kitten in her presence.

The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "You have a good riddance of me. That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned Briarmains into an hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon."

He drew up the glass; the chaise rolled away. In half an hour he alighted at his own garden wicket. Having paid the driver and dismissed the vehicle, he leaned on that wicket an instant, at once to rest and to muse.

"Six months ago I passed out at this gate," said he, "a proud, angry, disappointed man. I come back sadder and wiser; weakly enough, but not worried. A cold, gray, yet quiet world lies round—a world where, if I hope little, I fear nothing. All slavish terrors of embarrassment have left me. Let the worst come, I can work, as Joe Scott[Pg 523] does, for an honourable living; in such doom I yet see some hardship but no degradation. Formerly, pecuniary ruin was equivalent in my eyes to personal dishonour. It is not so now; I know the difference. Ruin is an evil, but one for which I am prepared; the day of whose coming I know, for I have calculated. I can yet put it off six months—not an hour longer. If things by that time alter, which is not probable; if fetters, which now seem indissoluble, should be loosened from our trade (of all things the most unlikely to happen), I might conquer in this long struggle yet—I might—good God! what might I not do? But the thought is a brief madness; let me see things with sane eyes. Ruin will come, lay her axe to my fortune's roots, and hew them down. I shall snatch a sapling, I shall cross the sea, and plant it in American woods. Louis will go with me. Will none but Louis go? I cannot tell—I have no right to ask."

He entered the house.

It was afternoon, twilight yet out of doors—starless and moonless twilight; for though keenly freezing with a dry, black frost, heaven wore a mask of clouds congealed and fast locked. The mill-dam too was frozen. The Hollow was very still. Indoors it was already dark. Sarah had lit a good fire in the parlour; she was preparing tea in the kitchen.

"Hortense," said Moore, as his sister bustled up to help him off with his cloak, "I am pleased to come home."

Hortense did not feel the peculiar novelty of this expression coming from her brother, who had never before called the cottage his home, and to whom its narrow limits had always heretofore seemed rather restrictive than protective. Still, whatever contributed to his happiness pleased her, and she expressed herself to that effect.

He sat down, but soon rose again. He went to the window; he came back to the fire.

"Hortense!"

"Mon frère?"

"This little parlour looks very clean and pleasant—unusually bright, somehow."

"It is true, brother; I have had the whole house thoroughly and scrupulously cleaned in your absence."

"Sister, I think on this first day of your return home you ought to have a friend or so to tea, if it were only to see how fresh and spruce you have made the little place."

[Pg 524]"True, brother. If it were not late I might send for Miss Mann."

"So you might; but it really is too late to disturb that good lady, and the evening is much too cold for her to come out."

"How thoughtful in you, dear Gérard! We must put it off till another day."

"I want some one to-day, dear sister—some quiet guest, who would tire neither of us."

"Miss Ainley?"

"An excellent person, they say; but she lives too far off. Tell Harry Scott to step up to the rectory with a request from you that Caroline Helstone should come and spend the evening with you."

"Would it not be better to-morrow, dear brother?"

"I should like her to see the place as it is just now; its brilliant cleanliness and perfect neatness are so much to your credit."

"It might benefit her in the way of example."

"It might and must; she ought to come."

He went into the kitchen.

"Sarah, delay tea half an hour." He then commissioned her to dispatch Harry Scott to the rectory, giving her a twisted note hastily scribbled in pencil by himself, and addressed "Miss Helstone."

Scarcely had Sarah time to get impatient under the fear of damage to her toast already prepared when the messenger returned, and with him the invited guest.

She entered through the kitchen, quietly tripped up Sarah's stairs to take off her bonnet and furs, and came down as quietly, with her beautiful curls nicely smoothed, her graceful merino dress and delicate collar all trim and spotless, her gay little work-bag in her hand. She lingered to exchange a few kindly words with Sarah, and to look at the new tortoise-shell kitten basking on the kitchen hearth, and to speak to the canary-bird, which a sudden blaze from the fire had startled on its perch; and then she betook herself to the parlour.

The gentle salutation, the friendly welcome, were interchanged in such tranquil sort as befitted cousins meeting; a sense of pleasure, subtle and