The die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley knew it; Mr. Sympson knew it. That evening, when all the Fieldhead family dined at Nunnely Priory, decided the business.
Two or three things conduced to bring the baronet to a point. He had observed that Miss Keeldar looked pensive and delicate. This new phase in her demeanour smote him on his weak or poetic side. A spontaneous sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was still working there, one of his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit down to the piano and sing a ballad--one of Sir Philip's own ballads. It was the least elaborate, the least affected--out of all comparison the best of his numerous efforts.
It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a window down on the park. She had seen that stormy moonlight which "le Professeur Louis" was perhaps at the same instant contemplating from her own oak-parlour lattice; she had seen the isolated trees of the domain--broad, strong, spreading oaks, and high-towering heroic beeches--wrestling with the gale. Her ear had caught the full roar of the forest lower down; the swift rushing of clouds, the moon, to the eye, hasting swifter still, had crossed her vision. She turned from sight and sound--touched, if not rapt; wakened, if not inspired.
She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad--faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that in calamity waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air; in themselves they were simple and sweet. Perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when _well_ sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well. She breathed into the feeling softness; she poured round the passion force. Her voice was fine that evening, its expression dramatic. She impressed all, and charmed one.
On leaving the instrument she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat--semi-stool, semi-cushion. The ladies were round her; none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? _They_ never sang so. Was it _proper_ to sing with such expression, with such originality--so unlike a school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange, it was unusual. What was _strange_ must be _wrong_; what was _unusual_ must be _improper_. Shirley was judged.
Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair by the fireside. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of mine or my daughters' kind. I object to her as my son's wife."
Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed. What he so wished to win there was danger he might lose. He must make haste.
The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery. Sir Philip's father--Sir Monckton--had converted it into a saloon; but still it had a shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a window--a recess that held one couch, one table, and a fairy cabinet--formed a room within a room. Two persons standing there might interchange a dialogue, and, so it were neither long nor loud, none be the wiser.
Sir Philip induced two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet. He gave occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder ladies were conversing together. He was pleased to remark that meantime Shirley rose to look at the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose dark beauty seemed as that of a flower of the south. He joined her, and began to tell it.
There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet adorning the recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality, perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck so still you might have fancied that whisper a charm which had changed her to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted. Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Mr. Sympson--Mr. Sympson only--had marked the pantomime.
That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was meddling, as profound as he was prying, he might have found that in Sir Philip's face whereby to correct his inference. Ever shallow, hasty, and positive, he went home quite cock-a-hoop.
He was not a man that kept secrets well. When elate on a subject, he could not avoid talking about it. The next morning, having occasion to employ his son's tutor as his secretary, he must needs announce to him, in mouthing accents, and with much flimsy pomp of manner, that he had better hold himself prepared for a return to the south at an early day, as the important business which had detained him (Mr. Sympson) so long in Yorkshire was now on the eve of fortunate completion. His anxious and laborious efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with the happiest success. A truly eligible addition was about to be made to the family connections.
"In Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore conjectured.
Whereupon Mr. Sympson treated himself simultaneously to a pinch of snuff and a chuckling laugh, checked only by a sudden choke of dignity, and an order to the tutor to proceed with business.
For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as oil, but also he seemed to sit on pins, and his gait, when he walked, emulated that of a hen treading a hot girdle. He was for ever looking out of the window and listening for chariot-wheels. Bluebeard's wife--Sisera's mother--were nothing to him. He waited when the matter should be opened in form, when himself should be consulted, when lawyers should be summoned, when settlement discussions and all the delicious worldly fuss should pompously begin.
At last there came a letter. He himself handed it to Miss Keeldar out of the bag. He knew the handwriting; he knew the crest on the seal. He did not see it opened and read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and was very long about it--the best part of a day. He questioned her whether it was answered; she responded, "Yes."
Again he waited--waited in silence, absolutely not daring to speak, kept mute by something in Shirley's face--a very awful something--inscrutable to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. He was moved more than once to call Daniel, in the person of Louis Moore, and to ask an interpretation; but his dignity forbade the familiarity. Daniel himself, perhaps, had his own private difficulties connected with that baffling bit of translation; he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank and dictionaries dumb.
* * * * *
Mr. Sympson had been out, to while away an anxious hour in the society of his friends at De Walden Hall. He returned a little sooner than was expected. His family and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak parlour. Addressing the latter, he requested her to step with him into another room. He wished to have with her a "_strictly_ private interview."
She rose, asking no questions and professing no surprise.
"Very well, sir," she said, in the tone of a determined person who is informed that the dentist is come to extract that large double tooth of his, from which he has suffered such a purgatory this month past. She left her sewing and her thimble in the window-seat, and followed her uncle where he led.
Shut into the drawing-room, the pair took seats, each in an arm-chair, placed opposite, a few yards between them.
"I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green carpet. _That_ information required no response. She gave none.
"I have learned," he went on slowly--"I have learned a circumstance which surprises me."
Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she waited to be told _what_ circumstance.
"It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up--that the family are gone back to their place in ----shire. It seems that the baronet--that the baronet--that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and sisters."
"Indeed!" said Shirley.
"May I ask if you share the amazement with which I received this news?"
"No, sir."
"_Is_ it news to you?"
"Yes, sir."
"I mean--I mean," pursued Mr. Sympson, now fidgeting in his chair, quitting his hitherto brief and tolerably clear phraseology, and returning to his customary wordy, confused, irritable style--"I mean to have a _thorough_ explanation. I will _not_ be put off. I--I--shall _insist_ on being heard, and on--on having my own way. My questions _must_ be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to be trifled with. (Silence.)
"It is a strange and an extraordinary thing--a very singular--a most odd thing! I thought all was right, knew no other; and there--the family are gone!"
"I suppose, sir, they had a right to go."
"_Sir Philip is gone!_" (with emphasis).
Shirley raised her brows. "_Bon voyage!_" said she.
"This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am."
He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed, and perfectly helpless.
"Come, come now, uncle," expostulated Shirley, "do not begin to fret and fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to know. I am as willing to come to an explanation as you. I promise you truthful replies."
"I want--I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you an offer?"
"He has."
"You avow it?"
"I avow it. But now, go on. Consider that point settled."
"He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory?"
"It is enough to say that he made it. Go on."
"He proposed in the recess--in the room that used to be a picture-gallery--that Sir Monckton converted into it saloon?"
No answer.
"You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all. My sagacity was not at fault--it never is. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what subject--of what nature were the contents?"
"No matter."
"Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?"
Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet.
"There you sit, silent and sullen--_you_ who promised truthful replies."
"Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed."
"I should like to see that letter."
"You _cannot_ see it."
"I _must_ and _shall_, ma'am; I am your guardian."
"Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian."
"Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter----"
"Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both remain cool. For my part, I do not wish to get into a passion; but, you know, once drive me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I say--I am not then soon checked. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know next?"
"I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I will."
"Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him."
"Refused him! You--_you_, Shirley Keeldar, _refused_ Sir Philip Nunnely?"
"I did."
The poor gentleman bounced from his chair, and first rushed and then trotted through the room.
"There it is! There it is! There it is!"
"Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so disappointed."
Concession, contrition, never do any good with some people. Instead of softening and conciliating, they but embolden and harden them. Of that number was Mr. Sympson.
"_I_ disappointed? What is it to me? Have _I_ an interest in it? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?"
"Most people have motives of some sort for their actions."
"She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a parent to her, she charges with bad motives!"
"_Bad_ motives I did not say."
"And now you prevaricate; you have no principles!"
"Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away."
"Go you shall not! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss Keeldar?"
"In what respect?"
"In respect of matrimony?"
"To be quiet, and to do just as I please."
"Just as you please! The words are to the last degree indecorous."
"Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not bear that."
"You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have imbibed French principles."
"The ground you are treading now returns a mighty hollow sound under your feet. Beware!"
"It will end in infamy, sooner or later. I have foreseen it all along."
"Do you assert, sir, that something in which _I_ am concerned will end in infamy?"
"That it will--that it will. You said just now you would act as you please. You acknowledge no rules--no limitations."
"Silly stuff, and vulgar as silly!"
"Regardless of decorum, you are prepared to fly in the face of propriety."
"You tire me, uncle."
"What, madam--_what_ could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?"
"At last there is another sensible question; I shall be glad to reply to it. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his relations--his mother especially--would be annoyed if he married me. Such a step would embroil him with them. I am not his equal in the world's estimation."
"Is that all?"
"Our dispositions are not compatible."
"Why, a more amiable gentleman never breathed."
"He is very amiable--very excellent--truly estimable; but _not my master_--not in one point. I could not trust myself with his happiness. I would not undertake the keeping of it for thousands. I will accept no hand which cannot hold me in check."
"I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent."
"When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction that I can keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me. He would expect me always to rule--to guide--and I have no taste whatever for the office."
"_You_ no taste for swaggering, and subduing, and ordering, and ruling?"
"Not my husband; only my uncle."
"Where is the difference?"
"There _is_ a slight difference--that is certain. And I know full well any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must be able to control me."
"I wish you had a real tyrant."
"A tyrant would not hold me for a day, not for an hour. I would rebel--break from him--defy him."
"Are you not enough to bewilder one's brain with your self-contradiction?"
"It is evident I bewilder your brain."
"You talk of Sir Philip being young. He is two-and-twenty."
"My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty."
"You had better pick out some old man--some white-headed or bald-headed swain."
"No, thank you."
"You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him to your apron."
"I might do that with a boy; but it is not my vocation. Did I not say I prefer a _master_--one in whose presence I shall feel obliged and disposed to be good; one whose control my impatient temper must acknowledge; a man whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very possible to fear?"
"What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is a baronet--a man of rank, property, connections far above yours. If you talk of intellect, he is a poet--he writes verses; which you, I take it, cannot do, with all your cleverness."
"Neither his title, wealth, pedigree, nor poetry avail to invest him with the power I describe. These are feather-weights; they want ballast. A measure of sound, solid, practical sense would have stood him in better stead with me."
"You and Henry rave about poetry! You used to catch fire like tinder on the subject when you were a girl."
"O uncle, there is nothing really valuable in this world, there is nothing glorious in the world to come that is not poetry!"
"Marry a poet, then, in God's name!"
"Show him me, and I will."
"Sir Philip."
"Not at all. You are almost as good a poet as he."
"Madam, you are wandering from the point."
"Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so, and I shall be glad to lead you away with me. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not worth while."
"Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of temper."
"_I_ am not, yet."
"If you mean to insinuate that _I_ am, I consider that you are guilty of impertinence."
"You will be soon, if you go on at that rate."
"There it is! With your pert tongue you would try the patience of a Job."
"I know I should."
"No levity, miss! This is not a laughing matter. It is an affair I am resolved to probe thoroughly, convinced that there is mischief at the bottom. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did you paint from the life?"
Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed rose-red.
"I shall have an answer to that question," affirmed Mr. Sympson, assuming vast courage and consequence on the strength of this symptom of confusion.
"It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals."
"Several originals! Bless my heart!"
"I have been in love several times."
"This is cynical."
"With heroes of many nations."
"What next----"
"And philosophers."
"She is mad----"
"Don't ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt."
"Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!"
"Once I loved Socrates."
"Pooh! no trifling, ma'am."
"I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas."
"Miss Keeldar----"
"To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the actual present----"
"Ah! the actual present."
"To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities."
"Realities! That is the test to which you shall be brought, ma'am."
"To avow before what altar I now kneel--to reveal the present idol of my soul----"
"You will make haste about it, if you please. It is near luncheon time, and confess _you shall_."
"Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I only wish you were Mr. Helstone instead of Mr. Sympson; you would sympathize with me better."
"Madam, it is a question of common sense and common prudence, not of sympathy and sentiment, and so on. Did you say it was Mr. Helstone?"
"Not precisely, but as near as may be; they are rather alike."
"I will know the name; I will have particulars."
"They positively _are_ rather alike. Their very faces are not dissimilar--a pair of human falcons--and dry, direct, decided both. But my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows."
"Rant and fustian!"
"I dare say he can be harsh as a saw-edge and gruff as a hungry raven."
"Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Answer me that."
"Uncle, I am going to tell you; his name is trembling on my tongue."
"Speak, girl!"
"That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is quite tragic. England has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar exultingly over him. He has been unscared by the howl, and he will be unelated by the shout."
"I said she was mad. She is."
"This country will change and change again in her demeanour to him; he will never change in his duty to her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I'll tell you his name."
"You shall tell me, or----"
"Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington."
Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat.
"Ma'am, you _shall_ tell me _this_. Will your principles permit you to marry a man without money--a man below you?"
"Never a man below me."
(In a high voice.) "Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man?"
"What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?"
"I insist upon knowing."
"You don't go the way to know."
"My family respectability shall not be compromised."
"A good resolution; keep it."
"Madam, it is _you_ who shall keep it."
"Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family."
"Do you disown us?"
"I disdain your dictatorship."
"Whom _will_ you marry, Miss Keeldar?"
"Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because I _only_ esteem him."
"Whom have you in your eye?"
"Four rejected candidates."
"Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence."
"What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil. Improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"
"Are you a young lady?"
"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated."
"Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly solemnity)--"do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?"
"Does it?"
"It does. Your name is in every mouth."
"It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it may purify them."
"Is it _that_ person who has power to influence you?"
"Beyond any whose cause you have advocated."
"Is it he you will marry?"
"He is handsome, and manly, and commanding."
"You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave! the low trader!"
"He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince is on his brow, and ruler in his bearing."
"She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame, no fear!"
"When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage."
"I say she is mad."
"You have taunted me till my blood is up; you have worried me till I turn again."
"That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let the usher call you sister?"
Bright and broad shone Shirley's eye as she fixed it on her questioner now.
"No, no; not for a province of possession, not for a century of life."
"You cannot separate the husband from his family."
"What then?"
"Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be."
"Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your aims are not my aims, your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same tongue. Let us part."
"It is not," she resumed, much excited--"it is not that I hate you; you are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we cannot suit; we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and keep me passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off. Mr. Sympson, go, offer them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I'll none of them. I wash my hands of the lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than you."
"Another creed! I believe she is an infidel."
"An infidel to _your_ religion, an atheist to _your_ god."
"_An--atheist!!!_"
"Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship; in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best--making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius, and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred--secret hatred; there is disgust--unspoken disgust; there is treachery--family treachery; there is vice--deep, deadly domestic vice. In his dominions children grow unloving between parents who have never loved; infants are nursed on deception from their very birth; they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies. Your god rules at the bridal of kings; look at your royal dynasties! Your deity is the deity of foreign aristocracies; analyze the blue blood of Spain! Your god is the Hymen of France; what is French domestic life? All that surrounds him hastens to decay; all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. _Your_ god is a masked Death."
"This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no longer, Miss Keeldar; there is danger in such companionship. Had I known you a little earlier--but, extraordinary as I thought you, I could not have believed----"
"Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me; that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I sweep your cobweb projects from my path, that I may pass on unsullied. I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand--_they only_. Know this at last."
Mr. Sympson was becoming a little bewildered.
"Never heard such language!" he muttered again and again; "never was so addressed in my life--never was so used!"
"You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will."
He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they must pack up at once."
"Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give them time."
"No more intercourse; she's not proper."
He made his way to the door. He came back for his handkerchief. He dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; he stumbled out. Tartar lay outside across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell over him. In the climax of his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress.
"Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and leaning her head upon a cushion, she softly subsided from excitement to repose. One, entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards, found her asleep. When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this natural refreshment; it would come at her call.
The intruder paused in her unconscious presence, and said, "Miss Keeldar."
Perhaps his voice harmonized with some dream into which she was passing. It did not startle, it hardly roused her. Without opening her eyes, she but turned her head a little, so that her cheek and profile, before hidden by her arm, became visible. She looked rosy, happy, half smiling, but her eyelashes were wet. She had wept in slumber; or perhaps, before dropping asleep, a few natural tears had fallen after she had heard that epithet. No man--no woman--is always strong, always able to bear up against the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even from the mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded feelings. Shirley looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now forgiven and at rest.
"Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked up, and saw at her side Louis Moore--not close at her side, but standing, with arrested step, two or three yards from her.
"O Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I have quarrelled."
"Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply. "Can he not see that you are as yet far from strong?"
"I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here."
"He is about to evacuate Fieldhead--so he says. He is now giving orders to his family. He has been in the schoolroom issuing commands in a manner which, I suppose, was a continuation of that with which he has harassed you."
"Are you and Henry to go?"
"I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the tenor of his scarcely intelligible directions; but he may change all to-morrow. He is just in that mood when you cannot depend on his consistency for two consecutive hours. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and comment by-and-by, when I have time to bestow on them. At the moment he came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke--so fully busied that I cut short the interview with him somewhat abruptly. I left him raving. Here is the note. I wish you to see it. It refers to my brother Robert." And he looked at Shirley.
"I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?"
"He is come. He is in Yorkshire. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro' to meet him."
"Mr. Moore, something is wrong----"
"Did my voice tremble? He is now at Briarmains, and I am going to see him."
"What has occurred?"
"If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt."
"O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down near me."
"Read the note. Let me open it."
Miss Keeldar read the note. It briefly signified that last night Robert Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation, at the foot of the Brow; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke observed, "it was done in revenge. It was a pity ill-will had ever been raised; but that could not be helped now."
"He is my only brother," said Louis, as Shirley returned the note. "I cannot hear unmoved that ruffians have laid in wait for him, and shot him down, like some wild beast from behind a wall."
"Be comforted; be hopeful. He will get better--I know he will."
Shirley, solicitous to soothe, held her hand over Mr. Moore's as it lay on the arm of the chair. She just touched it lightly, scarce palpably.
"Well, give me your hand," he said. "It will be for the first time; it is in a moment of calamity. Give it me."
Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took what he asked.
"I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "I want you to step over to the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened. Will you do this? She will hear it best from you."
"Immediately," said Shirley, with docile promptitude. "Ought I to say that there is no danger?"
"Say so."
"You will come back soon, and let me know more?"
"I will either come or write."
"Trust me for watching over Caroline. I will communicate with your sister too; but doubtless she is already with Robert?"
"Doubtless, or will be soon. Good-morning now."
"You will bear up, come what may."
"We shall see that."
Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the tutor's. Louis was obliged to relinquish that hand folded, clasped, hidden in his own.
"I thought I should have had to support her," he said, as he walked towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has made me strong. That look of pity, that gentle touch! No down was ever softer, no elixir more potent! It lay like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand times I have longed to possess that hand--to have it in mine. I _have_ possessed it; for five minutes I held it. Her fingers and mine can never be strangers more. Having met once they must meet again."

The die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley knew it; Mr. Sympson knew it. That evening, when the Fieldhead family dined at Nunnely Priory, decided the business.
Two or three things combined to bring the baronet to a point. He had observed that Miss Keeldar looked pensive and delicate. This struck him on his poetic side. A spontaneous sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was working there, one of his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit down to the piano and sing one of his own ballads.
It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a window. She had seen that stormy moonlight which Louis Moore was at the same instant contemplating from her own oak-parlour window; she had seen the trees wrestling with the gale, and heard the roar of the forest. She turned back touched, and wakened.
She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad - faithful love that disaster could not shake; that in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air, and Shirley sang them well, with feeling and passion.
On leaving the instrument she sat down by the fire. The ladies were round her; none of them spoke. They looked upon her as quiet poultry might look on an egret, or an ibis. What made her sing so? They never sang so, with such expression. It was decidedly improper. Shirley was judged.
Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of my kind. I object to her as my son's wife."
Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed: he must make haste.
The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery, and still had a shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a couch, a cabinet and a window formed a room within a room. Two persons standing there might talk quietly, and no-one be the wiser.
Sir Philip persuaded two of his sisters to sing a duet; the elder ladies were conversing together. He was pleased to notice that Shirley rose to look at the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one beautiful ancestress; so he joined her, and began to tell it.
There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet within the recess, and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the rosary, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, Sir Philip stooped too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was so still you might have fancied her changed to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted. Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Only Mr. Sympson had noticed the pantomime.
That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was meddling, he might have seen something in Sir Philip's face which corrected his ideas. Ever shallow and hasty, he went home quite cock-a-hoop.
He was not a man that kept secrets well. The next morning, while employing his son's tutor as his secretary, he must needs announce to him, with much flimsy pomp of manner, that he had better prepare himself for an early return south, as Mr. Sympson's important business in Yorkshire was now on the brink of fortunate completion. His anxious efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with success. A truly eligible addition was about to be made to the family.
"Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore guessed.
Mr. Sympson treated himself to a pinch of snuff and a chuckling laugh, before ordering the tutor to proceed with business.
For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as oil, but also he seemed to sit on pins. He was for ever looking out of the window and listening for carriage-wheels. He waited to be consulted, for lawyers to be summoned, for settlement discussions to begin.
At last there came a letter for Miss Keeldar. He knew the handwriting; he knew the crest on the seal. He handed it to her, but he did not see it read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and it took her the best part of a day. He questioned her whether it was answered; she responded, "Yes."
Again he waited, not daring to speak, kept mute by something in Shirley's face - a very awful and inscrutable something. He thought of calling Louis Moore to ask him for an interpretation of that look; but his dignity forbade it. Moore himself, perhaps, had his own private difficulties connected with that baffling bit of translation; he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank and dictionaries dumb.
Mr. Sympson went to visit the Wynnes. He returned sooner than expected, and requested Miss Keeldar's presence for a "strictly private interview."
She rose, showing no surprise, and followed her uncle into the drawing room like a person about to undergo an extraction at the dentist.
"I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss Keeldar studied the carpet and gave no response.
"I have learned," he went on, "a circumstance which surprises me. It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up - that the family have left the county. It seems that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and sisters."
"Indeed!" said Shirley.
"May I ask if you share the amazement with which I received this news?"
"No, sir."
"Is it news to you?"
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Sympson fidgeted in his chair. "I mean to have a thorough explanation. I will not be put off. My questions must be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to be trifled with. (Silence.)
"It is an extraordinary thing - very singular - most odd!" he expostulated.
"I suppose, sir, the family had a right to go."
"Sir Philip is gone!" (with emphasis).
Shirley raised her brows. "Bon voyage!" said she.
"This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am."
He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed, and perfectly helpless.
"Come now, uncle," said Shirley, "do not fret and fume. Ask me what you want to know. I promise you truthful replies."
"I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you an offer?"
"He has."
"He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory? He proposed in the recess? I saw it all. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what subject?"
"No matter."
"Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?"
Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet.
"There you sit, silent and sullen - you promised truthful replies."
"Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed."
"I should like to see that letter."
"You cannot see it."
"I must and shall, ma'am; I am your guardian."
"Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian."
"Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter-"
"Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both remain cool. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know next?"
"I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I will."
"Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him."
"Refused him! You - you, Shirley Keeldar, refused Sir Philip Nunnely?"
"I did."
The poor gentleman bounced from his chair. "There it is! There it is!"
"I am sincerely sorry, uncle, that you are so disappointed."
Concession and contrition never do any good with some people. They merely harden them. One such was Mr. Sympson.
"I disappointed? What is it to me? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?"
"Most people have motives for their actions."
"She accuses me to my face! She charges me with bad motives!"
"I did not say bad motives. Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away."
"No! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss Keeldar, in respect of matrimony?"
"To be quiet, and to do just as I please."
"Just as you please! Wholly indecorous."
"Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not bear that."
"You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have imbibed French principles."
"You are now treading on dangerous ground, sir. Beware!"
"It will end in infamy. I have foreseen it all along."
"Do you assert, sir, that something in which I am concerned will end in infamy?"
"That it will - that it will. You said just now you would act as you please. You acknowledge no rules - no limitations."
"Silly stuff! You tire me, uncle."
"What, madam, could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?"
"At last there is a sensible question; I shall be glad to reply. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his relations would be annoyed if he married me. I am not his equal in the world's view."
"Is that all?"
"Our dispositions are not compatible. He is very amiable; but not my master in any point. I could not trust myself with his happiness. I will accept no hand which cannot hold me in check."
"I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent."
"When I promise to obey, it shall be in the belief that I can keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me. He would expect me always to rule, and I have no taste for that."
"You no taste for swaggering, and ordering, and ruling?"
"Not my husband; only my uncle. Any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must be able to control me."
"I wish you had a real tyrant."
"A tyrant would not hold me for a day. I would rebel."
"You bewilder one's brain with your self-contradiction!"
"That is evident."
"You had better find some doting fool," said Mr. Sympson; "you might pin him to your apron."
"I might do that with a boy; did I not say I prefer a master? One who can control my impatient temper; a man whose approval can reward, whose displeasure can punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very possible to fear."
"What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is a man of rank; he is a poet. You and Henry rave about poetry! Marry a poet, then, in God's name! Marry Sir Philip."
"You are almost as good a poet as he."
"Madam, you are wandering from the point."
"Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not worth while."
"Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of temper."
"I am not, yet."
"If you mean that I am, you are guilty of impertinence."
"You will be soon, if you go on at that rate."
"There it is! You would try the patience of Job. This is not a laughing matter, miss. I am convinced that there is mischief here. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did you paint from the life?"
Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed rose-red.
"I shall have an answer!"
"It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals. I have been in love several times, with heroes of many nations."
"What next-"
"And philosophers."
"She is mad!"
"Once I loved Socrates; and I admired Themistocles."
"Miss Keeldar-"
"To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the present-"
"Ah! the present."
"To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities-"
"Realities indeed, ma'am!"
"To reveal the present idol of my soul-"
"You will make haste, if you please. Confess."
"Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I only wish you were Mr. Helstone; you would sympathize with me better."
"I will know the name!"
"My hero is rather like Mr. Helstone. Their very faces are similar - a pair of hawks - dry, direct, decided. But my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows."
"Rant and fustian! Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Speak, girl!"
"That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is quite tragic. England has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar exultingly over him. This country will change in her demeanour to him; he will never change in his duty to her. Come, uncle, I'll tell you his name. Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington."
Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat.
"Ma'am, you shall tell me this. Will your principles permit you to marry a man without money - a man below you?"
"Never a man below me."
"Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man? I insist upon knowing. My family respectability shall not be compromised."
"A good resolution; keep it."
"Madam, it is you who shall keep it."
"Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family."
"Whom will you marry, Miss Keeldar?"
"Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because I only esteem him."
"Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence."
"What do you mean? Improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"
"Are you a young lady?"
"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated."
"Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly solemnity) - "do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?"
"Does it?"
"It does. Is it he you will marry?"
"He is handsome, and manly, and commanding."
"You declare it to my face! The knave!"
"He is talented and resolute. He is a ruler in his bearing."
"She glories in it! No shame, no fear!"
"When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage."
"She is mad. That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let him call you sister?"
Bright shone Shirley's eye now. "No, no; not for a century of life."
"But Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be."
"Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same tongue. It is not that I hate you; you are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper. As to your narrow rules, your little prejudices, bundle them off, Mr. Sympson; I'll none of them. I wash my hands of the lot. I walk by another creed and faith than you."
"Another creed! I believe she is an infidel."
"An infidel to your religion, an atheist to your god."
"An atheist!!!"
"Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you are an idolater. Sir, your god, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You have raised him to a throne and given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best - making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is secret hatred; there is unspoken disgust; there is treachery and vice. In his dominions children grow unloving between parents who have never loved; infants are nursed on deception from their very birth; they are reared amongst lies. Your god is a masked Death."
"This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no longer, Miss Keeldar. I could not have believed-"
"Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me; that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake."
Mr. Sympson was bewildered. "Never heard such language!" he muttered; "Never was so addressed in my life!"
"You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will."
He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they must pack up at once. She's not fit for them to be with."
He made his way to the door; dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; and stumbled out, almost falling over Tartar. In his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress.
"Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and leant her head upon a cushion.
An intruder entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards found her asleep. He paused, and said, "Miss Keeldar."
Perhaps his voice harmonized with her dream. Without opening her eyes, she turned her head a little, so that her face became visible: rosy, happy, half smiling, but her eyelashes were wet. Shirley looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now forgiven and at rest.
"Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked up, and saw Louis Moore standing two or three yards away.
"O, Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I have quarrelled."
"Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply. "Can he not see that you are still far from strong?"
"I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here."
"He is about to leave Fieldhead - so he says. He is now giving orders to his family."
"Are you and Henry to go?"
"I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the gist of his scarcely intelligible orders; but he may change tomorrow. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and comment by-and-by, when I have time to think about them. At the moment he came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke - I cut short the interview with Mr. Sympson somewhat abruptly. I left him raving. Here is the note. It refers to my brother Robert."
"I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?"
"He is come. He is at Briarmains. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro' to meet him."
"Mr. Moore, something is wrong - what has happened?"
"If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt."
"O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down."
"Read the note."
Miss Keeldar read that last night Robert Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke wrote, "it was done in revenge.'
"He is my only brother," said Louis. "Shot like some wild beast from behind a wall."
"Be hopeful. He will get better - I know he will." Shirley held her hand over Mr. Moore's, touching it lightly.
"Well, give me your hand," he said. Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took it. "I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "Will you step over to the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened? She will hear it best from you."
"Immediately," said Shirley. "Ought I to say that there is no danger?"
"Say so."
"You will come back soon, and let me know more?"
"I will either come or write. Good-morning now."
"You will bear up, come what may."
"We shall see."
Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the tutor's. Louis was obliged to relinquish the hand folded in his own.
"I thought I should have had to support her," he said, as he walked towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has made me strong. That look of pity, that gentle touch! It lay like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand times I have longed to possess that hand - to have it in mine. I have possessed it; her fingers and mine can never be strangers more. Having met once they must meet again."


The next day Shirley expressed to Caroline how delighted she felt that the little party had gone off so well.
"I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said she. "It is amusing to observe how they enjoy a judiciously concocted repast. For ourselves, you see, these choice wines and these scientific dishes are of no importance to us; but gentlemen seem to retain something of the _navet_ of children about food, and one likes to please them--that is, when they show the becoming, decent self-government of our admirable rectors. I watch Moore sometimes, to try and discover how he can be pleased; but he has not that child's simplicity about him. Did you ever find out his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him than I."
"It is not, at any rate, that of my uncle and Dr. Boultby," returned Caroline, smiling. She always felt a sort of shy pleasure in following Miss Keeldar's lead respecting the discussion of her cousin's character. Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when invited, the temptation of talking about him of whom she was ever thinking was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what it is, for I never watched Robert in my life but my scrutiny was presently baffled by finding he was watching me."
"There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "You can't fix your eyes on him but his presently flash on you. He is never off his guard. He won't give you an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, his thoughts seem to be busy amongst your own thoughts, tracing your words and actions to their source, contemplating your motives at his ease. Oh! I know that sort of character, or something in the same style. It is one that piques me singularly. How does it affect you?"
This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp, sudden turns. Caroline used to be fluttered by them at first, but she had now got into the way of parrying these home-thrusts like a little Quakeress.
"Pique you? In what way does it pique you?" she said.
"Here he comes!" suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking off, starting up and running to the window. "Here comes a diversion. I never told you of a superb conquest I have made lately--made at those parties to which I can never persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been done without effort or intention on my part--that I aver. There is the bell--and, by all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they never hunt, then, except in couples? You may have one, Lina, and you may take your choice. I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!"
The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was seen in the chapter which first introduced its mistress to the reader, here gave tongue in the hall, amidst whose hollow space the deep bark resounded formidably. A growl more terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder, succeeded.
"Listen!" again cried Shirley, laughing. "You would think that the prelude to a bloody onslaught. They will be frightened. They don't know old Tartar as I do. They are not aware his uproars are all sound and fury, signifying nothing!"
Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane or whip. Immediately there was a yell--a scutter--a run--a positive tumult.
"O Malone, Malone!"
"Down! down! down!" cried the high voice.
"He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him. A blow is what he is not used to, and will not take."
Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot haste; another was backing fast to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time reiterating, "Down! down! down!" while the tawny dog bayed, bellowed, howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door against his fellow--nothing so merciless as terror. But the other fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield to his strength.
"Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones, "spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at Tartar; he won't harm a cat."
She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and John--the man who fed him--but was mostly indifferent to the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.
"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."
"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to reassure him."
"It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.--John" (turning to her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.--Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs are slippery."
In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak again.
Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted _clat_, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe her to death.
However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile even at any one under mortification. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed--for Shirley had looks and tones that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently _very_ civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.
For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat,--not on the sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere he opened his mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in narrower compass; he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his throat--his head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had an inventive, an original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that attitude, he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside, that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point in Peter's demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The 5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful management.
From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to descend. At length, however, that gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused--not a whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is insensible to shame. He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make colour mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no modesty in his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the commonplace--conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about the business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion was, when he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be master of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an impertinent, injured tone--"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal."
"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am very fond of him."
"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady fond of that brute--'tis so ugly--a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him."
"Hang what I am fond of!"
"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle--something appropriate to the fair sex. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."
"Perhaps I am an exception."
"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That is universally allowed."
"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any harm."
"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When I _sor_ him" (such was Mr. Donne's pronunciation) "about to spring, I thought I should have fainted."
"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."
"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the enemy."
"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"
"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been assured of this, I would have remained all day in the chamber. But what is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"
And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening to the garden, stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour. He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry.
"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the pavement towards the gate, bellowing _avec explosion_. His mistress quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt, stupid head to the new callers to be patted.
"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you know us? Good-morning, old boy!"
And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew to the sunny front of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was only his mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all others he showed himself obstinately insensible.
Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with them cordially. They were come to tell her of certain successes they had achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr. Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who was come, ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.
Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day; the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets. Both of them looked pretty--one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the profusely blooming flowers whose perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling her to choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.
Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun. Donne was not grateful--he never _was_ grateful for kindness and attention--but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted 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, 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 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 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 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 idea_r_ 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 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 her garden gates, wide she flung them open.
"Walk through," she said austerely, "and pretty quickly, and set foot on this pavement no more."
Donne was astounded. He had thought all the time he was showing himself off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled person of the first "ton;" he imagined he was producing a crushing impression. Had he not expressed disdain of everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof could be given that he was better than anything there? And yet here was he about to be turned like a dog out of a Yorkshire garden! Where, under such circumstances, was the "concatenation accordingly"?
"Rid me of you instantly--instantly!" reiterated Shirley, as he lingered.
"Madam--a clergyman! turn out a clergyman!"
"Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself no gentleman, and must go. Quick!"
She was quite resolved. There was no trifling with her. Besides, Tartar was again rising; he perceived symptoms of a commotion; he manifested a disposition to join in. There was evidently nothing for it but to go, and Donne made his exodus, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy as she closed the gates on him.
"How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the lisping cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation on the circumstance, as she returned to the table.
Ere long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled and darkened brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no invitation to further social enjoyment.

The next day Shirley told Caroline how delighted she felt that the little party had gone off so well.
"I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said she. "It is amusing to observe how they enjoy their meal. They retain something of the navet of children about food, and one likes to please them - that is, when they show the decent restraint of our admirable rectors. Moore has not that child's simplicity. Did you ever find out his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him than I."
"It is not food, at any rate," returned Caroline, smiling. She always felt a shy pleasure in discussing her cousin's character. Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when invited, the temptation of talking about him was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what it is, for whenever I watched Robert, my scrutiny was baffled by finding he was watching me."
"There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "He is never off his guard. He won't give you an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, he seems to be busy tracing your words to their source, contemplating your motives. Oh! I know that sort of character. It piques me singularly. How does it affect you?"
This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp, sudden turns. Caroline used to be flustered by them at first, but she had now got used to parrying them.
"Pique you? In what way?" she said.
"Here comes a diversion!" exclaimed Shirley, breaking off and running to the window. "I never told you of a superb conquest I have made lately, without any effort or intention on my part. By all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they only hunt in couples? You may have one, Lina; take your choice. Listen to Tartar!"
Her black-muzzled dog here gave tongue in the hall, where its deep bark echoed formidably. A growl as menacing as muttered thunder followed.
"Listen!" cried Shirley, laughing. "They will be frightened. They don't know old Tartar as I do. His uproars are all sound and fury, signifying nothing!"
Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane. Immediately there was a yell - a scutter - a run - a positive tumult.
"O Malone, Malone!"
"Down! down!" cried the high voice.
"He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him. He is not used to being hit."
Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for refuge upstairs; another was backing to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, crying, "Down! down!" while the dog bayed and howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door closed against his fellow - nothing so merciless as terror.
"Gentlemen," said Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones, "Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at Tartar; he won't harm a cat."
She was caressing Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore paws stretched out, snorting, his bulldog eyes holding a dull fire. His was an honest, phlegmatic, stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and John - the man who fed him - but was indifferent to the rest of the world. He was quiet enough, unless struck or threatened, and that put a demon into him.
"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, smiling. "That is Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to come out. I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."
"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, leaning over the balustrade. "Really, that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid. I thought it better to follow, in order to reassure him."
"Well, come down, if you please. John" (turning to her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne. Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs are slippery."
The caution came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak.
Tartar growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bow to her. He glared at both the ladies as if he would have liked to clutch one in each hand and throttle them.
However, Shirley took pity and ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed by Shirley's tones. He had the sense to feel that he had better be civil, and presently grew quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself fascinating.
Perhaps to allow an easy exit, he took his seat on a chair close to the door. No longer sullen or furious, he grew constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the ladies by fits and starts, on the most commonplace topics. He sighed deeply, significantly, after every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed before he spoke.
At last, aiming to add ease to his other charms, he drew forth an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went to work with energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped it open; again he folded it more narrowly; he made of it a handsome band. To what would he apply it? Would he wrap it about his throat - his head?
Neither. Peter Augustus had an original genius. He sat on the chair with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than once.
The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh silently and unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside, that her long curls might screen her smile. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by Peter's abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The 5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit had no weight against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once, to pursue the greater fortune of the two. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase, only he knew.
It appeared to be some time before Mr. Donne could be persuaded to descend the stairs. At length, however, he appeared, seeming not at all ashamed. Donne, indeed, was of that immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which feels no shame. He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; he had no modesty; he was arrogant, conceited and inane; and this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about it than if he had been an image carved in wood. His notion was, after visiting her a few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. She would accept him for love of his position; they would be married, and he should be master of Fieldhead; he should live very comfortably, have servants at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man.
You would not have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an injured tone: "A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal."
"Do you, Mr. Donne? I am very fond of him."
"You cannot be serious. A lady fond of that ugly brute - a mere carter's dog! Pray hang him."
"Hang him!"
"And purchase instead some pug or poodle. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."
"Perhaps I am an exception."
"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters."
"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any harm."
"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When I saw him about to spring, I thought I should have fainted."
"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."
"No; I was holding the door fast. Your man persuaded me to come out at last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. But what is that? I declare he told a falsehood! The dog is there!"
And indeed Tartar walked past the garden door. He still seemed in bad humour: he was growling again, and wheezing.
"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with the provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs tend to show while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang towards the gate, bellowing. His mistress quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt head to the new callers to be patted.
"What! Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "Good-morning, old boy!"
And little Mr. Sweeting, who was fearless of man, woman or brute, came through the gate, caressing the dog. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no fear of Tartar either. Tartar snuffed both the gentlemen, and then, as if concluding that they were harmless, he withdrew to the sunny front of the hall.
Shirley advanced to greet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting cordially. They were come to tell her of successes they had achieved that morning in asking for subscriptions to the fund. Mr. Hall's eyes beamed, his plain face positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed on her with gentle affection.
Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy, sunny day; the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest to his brilliant companion, and looked most frequently at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of flowers and gave some to Caroline, telling her to choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of the summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.
Shirley now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She led Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his paws, lay snoring under the noon sun. Donne was not grateful, but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, wishing to be impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted them awkwardly; Malone seemed specially at a loss, with a bouquet filling one hand, and his shillelagh in the other. Donne's fatuous "Thank you!" implied that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an attempt by the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like the sensible little man he was, putting it gallantly into his buttonhole.
As a reward, Miss Keeldar gave him an errand which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he flew to the kitchen. Ere long he reappeared, carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he collected six garden-chairs from various nooks, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid came out with a tray, and Sweeting aided her in setting out plates, knives, and forks, and a neat luncheon of cold chicken, ham, and tarts.
David Sweeting and Shirley were on the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite disinterested, for it did not affect his faithful allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes.
The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone contributed little to its vivacity, being busy with fork and wine-glass; but with four such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley and Caroline assembled on a green lawn, under a sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be dullness.
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, and he hoped Miss Keeldar 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 gatherings, a throng of glad faces, and told Mr. Hall they might count on her. She did not know what she would have to do, but they might order her as they pleased.
"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to sit at my table, Mr. Hall?"
"I shall not fail, " said he. "I have sat at her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six years," he continued, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. The first time she had to 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. I came to her aid, managed the urn, and in fact made the tea for her like any old woman."
"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.
"You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well, for it was not like the manner of most little ladies of twelve. 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 precaution of conducting her to her pew."
"And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline.
"And always sat at her table, and handed the cups. The next thing I do for her will be to marry her one 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 make you happy, I will not officiate. So take care."
"The warning 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. We will make you tenderly welcome."
"There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, "you don't care for a bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only, to be sentimental for a moment, keep that little wild forget-me-not, and to be still more sentimental - let me take two or three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir book."
And she took out a small book with a silver clasp, wherein 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, 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, I hope you are laughing at this; but the fact is, I am so used to comply with the requests of this young friend, I don't know how to refuse her. When requested to be sentimental, I obey."
"Margaret told me he is naturally sentimental," remarked Caroline, "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! I mean comparative innocence; for in His sight, I am well aware, none are pure. All have faults and frailty, needing the strength of His Spirit. Let us all cherish humility, when we look into our own hearts, and see there temptations which we blush to recognize. It is not youth, nor good looks, nor any outer charm which makes beauty or goodness in God's eyes. In the sight of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley is fairer and better than either of you young things, wrapt up in yourselves and in earthly hopes. She, with meekness and reverence, treads close in her Redeemer's steps."
Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in. "Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat importantly. "Ahem! Miss Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you please."
"Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I am all ears."
"I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, "and part purse. It is to the hand and purse I appeal. I came here this morning to beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr. Boultby intend to erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg. The Baptists 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. "Fine style!" Then aloud, "I am a churchwoman, certainly."
"Then you can't refuse to contribute. The 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 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 amount "shabby," and loudly demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with indignation and astonishment.
"At present I shall give no more," said she.
"Not give more! Why, with your property, I expected you to head the list with a cool hundred. 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, rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame tensed; her face quickened with scorn.
"Strange remarks," said she. "Reproach in return for bounty is misplaced."
"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"
"I do. If I had not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended school, the building of which I approve, and in no way to his ill-mannered curate - but for this, I should instantly reclaim it."
Donne was thick-skinned. "Wretched place, this Yorkshire," he went on. "The people - what a set! How coarse and uncultivated! They would be scouted in the south."
Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard.
"The rich," pursued the unconscious Donne, "are a parcel of misers. You scarcely ever see a family where a proper carriage or butler is kept; and as to the poor - clattering in clogs; the men in their shirt-sleeves, the women in mob-caps and bed-gowns. They positively deserve that one should turn a mad cow amongst them to rout them. He-he! what fun it would be!"
"There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley quietly, 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, walked to her garden gates, and flung them wide open.
"Walk through quickly," she said austerely, "and set foot on this pavement no more."
Donne was astounded. He had thought he was showing himself off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled person of the first "ton"; he imagined he was producing a crushing impression. Had he not expressed disdain of everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof could be given that he was better than anything there? And yet here was he about to be turned out like a dog out of a garden!
"Madam! turn out a clergyman!"
"Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself no gentleman, and you must go. Quick!"
There was no trifling with her. Besides, Tartar was again rising; he perceived symptoms of a commotion. There was nothing for it but to go, and Donne made his exit, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy as she closed the gates on him.
"How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation, as she returned to the table.
Before long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled and darkened brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no invitation to further social enjoyment.