Shirley Charlotte BrontĂ« (free ebook reader for pc .txt) đ
- Author: Charlotte Brontë
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âIt is now nightâ âmidnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at Fieldhead. Some hours ago she passed me, coming down the oak staircase to the hall. She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she lookedâ âslim and swift as a northern streamer!
âI followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone were both there; she has summoned them to bear her company awhile. In her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy, with her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning, she looked, I thought, spirit-likeâ âa thing made of an element, the child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray and raindropâ âa thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following her with my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to meâ ânot even when she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs. Gill. I passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a word as she returned; nor in this did I fail.
âââMiss Keeldar, stay one instant,â said I, meeting her.
âââWhy? the hall is too cold.â
âââIt is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.â
âââBut I shiver.â
âââWith fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and distant. Why?â
âââI may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight.â
âââDo notâ âdo not pass! Stay with me awhile. Let us exchange a few quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes are cruel.â
âââI have no wish to be cruel,â she responded, softly enough. Indeed there was softness in her whole deportmentâ âin her face, in her voice; but there was also reserve, and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible.
âââYou certainly give me pain,â said I. âIt is hardly a week since you called me your future husband and treated me as such. Now I am once more the tutor for you. I am addressed as Mr. Moore and sir. Your lips have forgotten Louis.â
âââNo, Louis, no. It is an easy, liquid nameâ ânot soon forgotten.â
âââBe cordial to Louis, then; approach himâ âlet him approach.â
âââI am cordial,â said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow.
âââYour voice is very sweet and very low,â I answered, quietly advancing. âYou seem subdued, but still startled.â
âââNoâ âquite calm, and afraid of nothing,â she assured me.
âââOf nothing but your votary.â
âI bent a knee to the flags at her feet.
âââYou see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I donât know myself; I donât know you. But rise. When you do so I feel troubled and disturbed.â
âI obeyed. It would not have suited me to retain that attitude long. I courted serenity and confidence for her, and not vainly. She trusted and clung to me again.
âââNow, Shirley,â I said, âyou can conceive I am far from happy in my present uncertain, unsettled state.â
âââOh yes, you are happy!â she cried hastily. âYou donât know how happy you are. Any change will be for the worse.â
âââHappy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer. You are too generous to require it.â
âââBe reasonable, Louis; be patient! I like you because you are patient.â
âââLike me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix our marriage day; think of it tonight, and decide.â
âShe breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted, from my armsâ âand I lost her.â
XXXVII The Winding-UpYes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate the final fates of some of the personages whose acquaintance we have made in this narrative, and then you and I must shake hands, and for the present separate.
Let us turn to the curatesâ âto the much-loved, though long-neglected. Come forward, modest merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers the invocation. He knows his own description when he hears it.
No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It wonât do. Impossible to trust ourselves with the touching tale of your deeds and destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and burnt feathers. âImpossible!â would be pronounced here; âuntrue!â would be responded there; âinartistic!â would be solemnly decided. Note well. Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always denounced as a lieâ âthey disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish; whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly naturalâ âthe little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, the honest, lawful bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you are the legitimate urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand down.
Make way for Mr. Sweeting.
Here he comes, with his lady on his armâ âthe most splendid and the weightiest woman in Yorkshireâ âMrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes. They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes being in circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion. They lived long and happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle
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