MRS. PRYOR.
While Shirley was talking with Moore, Caroline rejoined Mrs. Pryor
upstairs. She found that lady deeply depressed. She would not say that
Miss Keeldar's hastiness had hurt her feelings, but it was evident an
inward wound galled her. To any but a congenial nature she would have
seemed insensible to the quiet, tender attentions by which Miss Helstone
sought to impart solace; but Caroline knew that, unmoved or slightly
moved as she looked, she felt, valued, and was healed by them.
"I am deficient in self-confidence and decision," she said at last. "I
always have been deficient in those qualities. Yet I think Miss Keeldar
should have known my character well enough by this time to be aware that
I always feel an even painful solicitude to do right, to act for the
best. The unusual nature of the demand on my judgment puzzled me,
especially following the alarms of the night. I could not venture to act
promptly for another; but I trust no serious harm will result from my
lapse of firmness."
A gentle knock was here heard at the door. It was half opened.
"Caroline, come here," said a low voice.
Miss Helstone went out. There stood Shirley in the gallery, looking
contrite, ashamed, sorry as any repentant child.
"How is Mrs. Pryor?" she asked.
"Rather out of spirits," said Caroline.
"I have behaved very shamefully, very ungenerously, very ungratefully to
her," said Shirley. "How insolent in me to turn on her thus for what,
after all, was no fault--only an excess of conscientiousness on her
part. But I regret my error most sincerely. Tell her so, and ask if she
will forgive me."
Caroline discharged the errand with heartfelt pleasure. Mrs. Pryor rose,
came to the door. She did not like scenes; she dreaded them as all
timid people do. She said falteringly, "Come in, my dear."
Shirley did come in with some impetuosity. She threw her arms round her
governess, and while she kissed her heartily she said, "You know you
_must_ forgive me, Mrs. Pryor. I could not get on at all if there was a
misunderstanding between you and me."
"I have nothing to forgive," was the reply. "We will pass it over now,
if you please. The final result of the incident is that it proves more
plainly than ever how unequal I am to certain crises."
And that was the painful feeling which _would_ remain on Mrs. Pryor's
mind. No effort of Shirley's or Caroline's could efface it thence. She
could forgive her offending pupil, not her innocent self.
Miss Keeldar, doomed to be in constant request during the morning, was
presently summoned downstairs again. The rector called first. A lively
welcome and livelier reprimand were at his service. He expected both,
and, being in high spirits, took them in equally good part.
In the course of his brief visit he quite forgot to ask after his niece;
the riot, the rioters, the mill, the magistrates, the heiress, absorbed
all his thoughts to the exclusion of family ties. He alluded to the part
himself and curate had taken in the defence of the Hollow.
"The vials of pharisaical wrath will be emptied on our heads for our
share in this business," he said; "but I defy every calumniator. I was
there only to support the law, to play my part as a man and a Briton;
which characters I deem quite compatible with those of the priest and
Levite, in their highest sense. Your tenant Moore," he went on, "has won
my approbation. A cooler commander I would not wish to see, nor a more
determined. Besides, the man has shown sound judgment and good
sense--first, in being thoroughly prepared for the event which has taken
place; and subsequently, when his well-concerted plans had secured him
success, in knowing how to use without abusing his victory. Some of the
magistrates are now well frightened, and, like all cowards, show a
tendency to be cruel. Moore restrains them with admirable prudence. He
has hitherto been very unpopular in the neighbourhood; but, mark my
words, the tide of opinion will now take a turn in his favour. People
will find out that they have not appreciated him, and will hasten to
remedy their error; and he, when he perceives the public disposed to
acknowledge his merits, will show a more gracious mien than that with
which he has hitherto favoured us."
Mr. Helstone was about to add to this speech some half-jesting,
half-serious warnings to Miss Keeldar on the subject of her rumoured
partiality for her talented tenant, when a ring at the door, announcing
another caller, checked his raillery; and as that other caller appeared
in the form of a white-haired elderly gentleman, with a rather truculent
countenance and disdainful eye--in short, our old acquaintance, and the
rector's old enemy, Mr. Yorke--the priest and Levite seized his hat, and
with the briefest of adieus to Miss Keeldar and the sternest of nods to
her guest took an abrupt leave.
Mr. Yorke was in no mild mood, and in no measured terms did he express
his opinion on the transaction of the night. Moore, the magistrates, the
soldiers, the mob leaders, each and all came in for a share of his
invectives; but he reserved his strongest epithets--and real racy
Yorkshire Doric adjectives they were--for the benefit of the fighting
parsons, the "sanguinary, demoniac" rector and curate. According to him,
the cup of ecclesiastical guilt was now full indeed.
"The church," he said, "was in a bonny pickle now. It was time it came
down when parsons took to swaggering amang soldiers, blazing away wi'
bullet and gunpowder, taking the lives of far honester men than
themselves."
"What would Moore have done if nobody had helped him?" asked Shirley.
"Drunk as he'd brewed, eaten as he'd baked."
"Which means you would have left him by himself to face that mob. Good!
He has plenty of courage, but the greatest amount of gallantry that ever
garrisoned one human breast could scarce avail against two hundred."
"He had the soldiers, those poor slaves who hire out their own blood and
spill other folk's for money."
"You abuse soldiers almost as much as you abuse clergymen. All who wear
red coats are national refuse in your eyes, and all who wear black are
national swindlers. Mr. Moore, according to you, did wrong to get
military aid, and he did still worse to accept of any other aid. Your
way of talking amounts to this: he should have abandoned his mill and
his life to the rage of a set of misguided madmen, and Mr. Helstone and
every other gentleman in the parish should have looked on, and seen the
building razed and its owner slaughtered, and never stirred a finger to
save either."
"If Moore had behaved to his men from the beginning as a master ought to
behave, they never would have entertained their present feelings towards
him."
"Easy for you to talk," exclaimed Miss Keeldar, who was beginning to wax
warm in her tenant's cause--"you, whose family have lived at Briarmains
for six generations, to whose person the people have been accustomed for
fifty years, who know all their ways, prejudices, and preferences--easy,
indeed, for _you_ to act so as to avoid offending them. But Mr. Moore
came a stranger into the district; he came here poor and friendless,
with nothing but his own energies to back him, nothing but his honour,
his talent, and his industry to make his way for him. A monstrous crime
indeed that, under such circumstances, he could not popularize his
naturally grave, quiet manners all at once; could not be jocular, and
free, and cordial with a strange peasantry, as you are with your
fellow-townsmen! An unpardonable transgression that when he introduced
improvements he did not go about the business in quite the most politic
way, did not graduate his changes as delicately as a rich capitalist
might have done! For errors of this sort is he to be the victim of mob
outrage? Is he to be denied even the privilege of defending himself? Are
those who have the hearts of men in their breasts (and Mr. Helstone, say
what you will of him, has such a heart) to be reviled like malefactors
because they stand by him, because they venture to espouse the cause of
one against two hundred?"
"Come, come now, be cool," said Mr. Yorke, smiling at the earnestness
with which Shirley multiplied her rapid questions.
"Cool! Must I listen coolly to downright nonsense--to dangerous
nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr. Yorke, as you know, but I
thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that cant--excuse me,
but I repeat the word--all that _cant_ about soldiers and parsons is
most offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up of one
class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat--all howling down of
another class, whether clerical or military--all exacting injustice to
individuals, whether monarch or mendicant--is really sickening to me;
all arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, all tyrannies
disguised as liberties, I reject and wash my hands of. _You_ think you
are a philanthropist; _you_ think you are an advocate of liberty; but I
will tell you this--Mr. Hall, the parson of Nunnely, is a better friend
both of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke, the reformer of Briarfield."
From a man Mr. Yorke would not have borne this language very patiently,
nor would he have endured it from some women; but he accounted Shirley
both honest and pretty, and her plain-spoken ire amused him. Besides, he
took a secret pleasure in hearing her defend her tenant, for we have
already intimated he had Robert Moore's interest very much at heart.
Moreover, if he wished to avenge himself for her severity, he knew the
means lay in his power: a word, he believed, would suffice to tame and
silence her, to cover her frank forehead with the rosy shadow of shame,
and veil the glow of her eye under down-drooped lid and lash.
"What more hast thou to say?" he inquired, as she paused, rather, it
appeared, to take breath than because her subject or her zeal was
exhausted.
"Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast from
wall to wall of the oak parlour--"say? I have a great deal to say, if I
could get it out in lucid order, which I never _can_ do. I have to say
that your views, and those of most extreme politicians, are such as none
but men in an irresponsible position _can_ advocate; that they are
purely opposition views, meant only to be talked about, and never
intended to be acted on. Make you Prime Minister of England to-morrow,
and you would have to abandon them. You abuse Moore for defending his
mill. Had you been in Moore's place you could not with honour or sense
have acted otherwise than he acted. You abuse Mr. Helstone for
everything he does. Mr. Helstone has his faults; he sometimes does
wrong, but oftener right. Were you ordained vicar of Briarfield, you
would find it no easy task to sustain all the active schemes for the
benefit of the parish planned and persevered in by your predecessor. I
wonder people cannot judge more fairly of each other and themselves.
When I hear Messrs. Malone and Donne chatter about the authority of the
church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to
them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their small spite
against Dissenters; when I witness their silly, narrow jealousies and
assumptions; when their palaver about forms, and traditions, and
superstitions is sounding in my ear; when I behold their insolent
carriage to the poor, their often base servility to the rich--I think
the Establishment is indeed in a poor way, and both she and her sons
appear in the utmost need of reformation. Turning away distressed from
minster tower and village spire--ay, as distressed as a churchwarden who
feels the exigence of white-wash and has not wherewithal to purchase
lime--I recall your senseless sarcasms on the 'fat bishops,' the
'pampered parsons,' 'old mother church,' etc. I remember your strictures
on all who differ from you, your sweeping condemnation of classes and
individuals, without the slightest allowance made for circumstances or
temptations; and then, Mr. Yorke, doubt clutches my inmost heart as to
whether men exist clement, reasonable, and just enough to be entrusted
with the task of reform. I don't believe _you_ are of the number."
"You have an ill opinion of me, Miss Shirley. You never told me so much
of your mind before."
"I never had an opening. But I have sat on Jessy's stool by your chair
in the back-parlour at Briarmains, for evenings together, listening
excitedly to your talk, half admiring what you said, and half rebelling
against it. I think you a fine old Yorkshireman, sir. I am proud to have
been born in the same county and parish as yourself. Truthful, upright,
independent you are, as a rock based below seas; but also you are harsh,
rude, narrow, and merciless."
"Not to the poor, lass, nor to the meek of the earth; only to the proud
and high-minded."
"And what right have you, sir, to make such distinctions? A prouder, a
higher-minded man than yourself does not exist. You find it easy to
speak comfortably to your inferiors; you are too haughty, too ambitious,
too jealous to be civil to those above you. But you are all alike.
Helstone also is proud and prejudiced. Moore, though juster and more
considerate than either you or the rector, is still haughty, stern, and,
in a public sense, selfish. It is well there are such men as Mr. Hall to
be found occasionally--men of large and kind hearts, who can love their
whole race, who can forgive others for being richer, more prosperous, or
more powerful than they are. Such men may have less originality, less
force of character than you, but they are better friends to mankind."
"And when is it to be?" said Mr. Yorke, now rising.
"When is what to be?"
"The wedding."
"Whose wedding?"
"Only that of Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Cottage, with Miss
Keeldar, daughter and heiress of the late Charles Cave Keeldar of
Fieldhead Hall."
Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour. But the light in her
eye was not faltering; it shone steadily--yes, it burned deeply.
"That is your revenge," she said slowly; then added, "Would it be a bad
match, unworthy of the late Charles Cave Keeldar's representative?"
"My lass, Moore is a gentleman; his blood is pure and ancient as mine or
thine."
"And we two set store by ancient blood? We have family pride, though one
of us at least is a republican?"
Yorke bowed as he stood before her. His lips were mute, but his eye
confessed the impeachment. Yes, he had family pride; you saw it in his
whole bearing.
"Moore _is_ a gentleman," echoed Shirley, lifting her head with glad
grace. She checked herself. Words seemed crowding to her tongue. She
would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much at the moment.
What, Yorke tried to read, but could not. The language was there,
visible, but untranslatable--a poem, a fervid lyric, in an unknown
tongue. It was not a plain story, however, no simple gush of feeling, no
ordinary love-confession--that was obvious. It was something other,
deeper, more intricate than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not
struck home. He felt that Shirley triumphed. She held him at fault,
baffled, puzzled. _She_ enjoyed the moment, not _he_.
"And if Moore _is_ a gentleman, you _can_ be only a lady; therefore----"
"Therefore there would be no inequality in our union."
"None."
"Thank you for your approbation. Will you give me away when I relinquish
the name of Keeldar for that of Moore?"
Mr. Yorke, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not
divine what her look signified--whether she spoke in earnest or in jest.
There were purpose and feeling, banter and scoff, playing, mingled, on
her mobile lineaments.
"I don't understand thee," he said, turning away.
She laughed. "Take courage, sir; you are not singular in your ignorance.
But I suppose if Moore understands me that will do, will it not?"
"Moore may settle his own matters henceforward for me; I'll neither
meddle nor make with them further."
A new thought crossed her. Her countenance changed magically. With a
sudden darkening of the eye and austere fixing of the features she
demanded, "Have you been asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as
another's proxy?"
"The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look about him! Keep all your
questions for Robert; I'll answer no more on 'em. Good-day, lassie!"
* * * * *
The day being fine, or at least fair--for soft clouds curtained the sun,
and a dim but not chill or waterish haze slept blue on the
hills--Caroline, while Shirley was engaged with her callers, had
persuaded Mrs. Pryor to assume her bonnet and summer shawl, and to take
a walk with her up towards the narrow end of the Hollow.
Here the opposing sides of the glen, approaching each other and becoming
clothed with brushwood and stunted oaks, formed a wooded ravine, at the
bottom of which ran the mill-stream, in broken, unquiet course,
struggling with many stones, chafing against rugged banks, fretting with
gnarled tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went. Here, when
you had wandered half a mile from the mill, you found a sense of deep
solitude--found it in the shade of unmolested trees, received it in the
singing of many birds, for which that shade made a home. This was no
trodden way. The freshness of the wood flowers attested that foot of man
seldom pressed them; the abounding wild roses looked as if they budded,
bloomed, and faded under the watch of solitude, as if in a sultan's
harem. Here you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognized in
pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, a humble type of some starlit
spot in space.
Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk. She ever shunned high-roads, and sought
byways and lonely lanes. One companion she preferred to total solitude,
for in solitude she was nervous; a vague fear of annoying encounters
broke the enjoyment of quite lonely rambles. But she feared nothing with
Caroline. When once she got away from human habitations, and entered
the still demesne of nature accompanied by this one youthful friend, a
propitious change seemed to steal over her mind and beam in her
countenance. When with Caroline--and Caroline only--her heart, you would
have said, shook off a burden, her brow put aside a veil, her spirits
too escaped from a restraint. With her she was cheerful; with her, at
times, she was tender; to her she would impart her knowledge, reveal
glimpses of her experience, give her opportunities for guessing what
life she had lived, what cultivation her mind had received, of what
calibre was her intelligence, how and where her feelings were
vulnerable.
To-day, for instance, as they walked along, Mrs. Pryor talked to her
companion about the various birds singing in the trees, discriminated
their species, and said something about their habits and peculiarities.
English natural history seemed familiar to her. All the wild flowers
round their path were recognized by her; tiny plants springing near
stones and peeping out of chinks in old walls--plants such as Caroline
had scarcely noticed before--received a name and an intimation of their
properties. It appeared that she had minutely studied the botany of
English fields and woods. Having reached the head of the ravine, they
sat down together on a ledge of gray and mossy rock jutting from the
base of a steep green hill which towered above them. She looked round
her, and spoke of the neighbourhood as she had once before seen it long
ago. She alluded to its changes, and compared its aspect with that of
other parts of England, revealing in quiet, unconscious touches of
description a sense of the picturesque, an appreciation of the beautiful
or commonplace, a power of comparing the wild with the cultured, the
grand with the tame, that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as
pleasant as it was unpretending.
The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened--so sincere,
so quiet, yet so evident--stirred the elder lady's faculties to gentle
animation. Rarely, probably, had she, with her chill, repellent outside,
her diffident mien, and incommunicative habits, known what it was to
excite in one whom she herself could love feelings of earnest affection
and admiring esteem. Delightful, doubtless, was the consciousness that a
young girl towards whom it seemed, judging by the moved expression of
her eyes and features, her heart turned with almost a fond impulse,
looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With a
somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often permitted herself
to use, she said, as she bent towards her youthful companion, and put
aside from her forehead a pale brown curl which had strayed from the
confining comb, "I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will do
you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see something more of colour
in these cheeks; but perhaps you were never florid?"
"I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "I remember a
year--two years ago--when I used to look in the glass, I saw a different
face there to what I see now--rounder and rosier. But when we are
young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our
lives easy."
"Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort that tyrant
timidity which made it difficult for her, even under present
circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of another's heart--"do you, at
your age, fret yourself with cares for the future? Believe me, you had
better not. Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself."
"True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day
is sometimes oppressive--too oppressive--and I long to escape it."
"That is--the evil of the day--that is--your uncle perhaps is not--you
find it difficult to understand--he does not appreciate----"
Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences; she could not manage
to put the question whether Mr. Helstone was too harsh with his niece.
But Caroline comprehended.
"Oh, that is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I get on very well. We
never quarrel--I don't call him harsh--he never scolds me. Sometimes I
wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I
particularly wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As a
child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention, only the
servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to
us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. It is my uncle's way not
to care for women and girls, unless they be ladies that he meets in
company. He could not alter, and I have no wish that he should alter, as
far as I am concerned. I believe it would merely annoy and frighten me
were he to be affectionate towards me now. But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it
is scarcely _living_ to measure time as I do at the rectory. The hours
pass, and I get them over somehow, but I do not _live_. I endure
existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came I have
been--I was going to say happier, but that would be untrue." She paused.
"How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you not, my dear?"
"Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But I am painfully
circumstanced. For a reason I cannot explain I want to go away from this
place, and to forget it."
"You told me before you wished to be a governess; but, my dear, if you
remember, I did not encourage the idea. I have been a governess myself
great part of my life. In Miss Keeldar's acquaintance I esteem myself
most fortunate. Her talents and her really sweet disposition have
rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young, before I married,
my trials were severe, poignant. I should not like a---- I should not
like you to endure similar ones. It was my lot to enter a family of
considerable pretensions to good birth and mental superiority, and the
members of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an unusual
endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all their hearts were
regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar state of discipline. I was
early given to understand that 'as I was not their equal,' so I could
not expect 'to have their sympathy.' It was in no sort concealed from me
that I was held a 'burden and a restraint in society.' The gentlemen, I
found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,' to whom 'they were interdicted
from granting the usual privileges of the sex,' and yet 'who annoyed
them by frequently crossing their path.' The ladies too made it plain
that they thought me 'a bore.' The servants, it was signified, 'detested
me;' _why_, I could never clearly comprehend. My pupils, I was told,
'however much they might love me, and how deep soever the interest I
might take in them, could not be my friends.' It was intimated that I
must 'live alone, and never transgress the invisible but rigid line
which established the difference between me and my employers.' My life
in this house was sedentary, solitary, constrained, joyless, toilsome.
The dreadful crushing of the animal spirits, the ever-prevailing sense
of friendlessness and homelessness consequent on this state of things
began ere long to produce mortal effects on my constitution. I sickened.
The lady of the house told me coolly I was the victim of 'wounded
vanity.' She hinted that if I did not make an effort to quell my
'ungodly discontent,' to cease 'murmuring against God's appointment,'
and to cultivate the profound humility befitting my station, my mind
would very likely 'go to pieces' on the rock that wrecked most of my
sisterhood--morbid self-esteem--and that I should die an inmate of a
lunatic asylum.
"I said nothing to Mrs. Hardman--it would have been useless; but to her
eldest daughter I one day dropped a few observations, which were
answered thus. There were hardships, she allowed, in the position of a
governess. 'Doubtless they had their trials; but,' she averred, with a
manner it makes me smile now to recall--'but it must be so. _She_' (Miss
H.) 'had neither view, hope, nor _wish_ to see these things remedied;
for in the inherent constitution of English habits, feelings, and
prejudices there was no possibility that they should be. Governesses,'
she observed, 'must ever be kept in a sort of isolation. It is the only
means of maintaining that distance which the reserve of English manners
and the decorum of English families exact.'
"I remember I sighed as Miss Hardman quitted my bedside. She caught the
sound, and turning, said severely, 'I fear, Miss Grey, you have
inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin
of pride. You are proud, and therefore you are ungrateful too. Mamma
pays you a handsome salary, and if you had average sense you would
thankfully put up with much that is fatiguing to do and irksome to bear,
since it is so well made worth your while.'
"Miss Hardman, my love, was a very strong-minded young lady, of most
distinguished talents. The aristocracy are decidedly a very superior
class, you know, both physically, and morally, and mentally; as a high
Tory I acknowledge that. I could not describe the dignity of her voice
and mien as she addressed me thus; still, I fear she was selfish, my
dear. I would never wish to speak ill of my superiors in rank, but I
think she was a little selfish."
"I remember," continued Mrs. Pryor, after a pause, "another of Miss H.'s
observations, which she would utter with quite a grand air. 'WE,' she
would say--'WE need the imprudences, extravagances, mistakes, and crimes
of a certain number of fathers to sow the seed from which WE reap the
harvest of governesses. The daughters of trades-people, however well
educated, must necessarily be underbred, and as such unfit to be
inmates of OUR dwellings, or guardians of OUR children's minds and
persons. WE shall ever prefer to place those about OUR offspring who
have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement as
OURSELVES.'"
"Miss Hardman must have thought herself something better than her
fellow-creatures, ma'am, since she held that their calamities, and even
crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. You say she was
religious. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked
God that he was not as other men are, nor even as that publican."
"My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be the last person to
wish to instil into your mind any feeling of dissatisfaction with your
lot in life, or any sentiment of envy or insubordination towards your
superiors. Implicit submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to
our betters (under which term I, of course, include the higher classes
of society), are, in my opinion, indispensable to the well-being of
every community. All I mean to say, my dear, is that you had better not
attempt to be a governess, as the duties of the position would be too
severe for your constitution. Not one word of disrespect would I breathe
towards either Mrs. or Miss Hardman; only, recalling my own experience,
I cannot but feel that, were you to fall under auspices such as theirs,
you would contend a while courageously with your doom, then you would
pine and grow too weak for your work; you would come home--if you still
had a home--broken down. Those languishing years would follow of which
none but the invalid and her immediate friends feel the heart-sickness
and know the burden. Consumption or decline would close the chapter.
Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it yours. My dear,
we will now walk about a little, if you please."
They both rose, and slowly paced a green natural terrace bordering the
chasm.
"My dear," ere long again began Mrs. Pryor, a sort of timid, embarrassed
abruptness marking her manner as she spoke, "the young, especially those
to whom nature has been favourable, often--frequently--anticipate--look
forward to--to marriage as the end, the goal of their hopes."
And she stopped. Caroline came to her relief with promptitude, showing a
great deal more self-possession and courage than herself on the
formidable topic now broached.
"They do, and naturally," she replied, with a calm emphasis that
startled Mrs. Pryor. "They look forward to marriage with some one they
love as the brightest, the only bright destiny that can await them. Are
they wrong?"
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands; and again she
paused. Caroline turned a searching, an eager eye on the face of her
friend: that face was much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is
an illusion."
"But not love! Love is real--the most real, the most lasting, the
sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know."
"My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong--strong as death!
Most of the cheats of existence are strong. As to their sweetness,
nothing is so transitory; its date is a moment, the twinkling of an eye.
The sting remains for ever. It may perish with the dawn of eternity, but
it tortures through time into its deepest night."
"Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is
mutual love."
"Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I
hope?"
"Sometimes--whenever I can get them, indeed. But romance-writers might
know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it."
"Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly, "nor of
marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be
too strongly condemned. They are not like reality. They show you only
the green, tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or
truthful hint of the slough underneath."
"But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There are happy
marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are
harmonious, marriage _must_ be happy."
"It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one.
There is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar
circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run
the risk--you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear. Let all
the single be satisfied with their freedom."
"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay.
"You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her most gloomy moments, like Miss Mann
when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is
terrible!"
"No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the pleasant morning
time of life; the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night,
are yet to come for you. Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I
wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been
living. She died! she died!"
"And, alas! my own mother and father----" exclaimed Caroline, struck by
a sombre recollection.
"What of them?"
"Did I never tell you that they were separated?"
"I have heard it."
"They must, then, have been very miserable."
"You see all _facts_ go to prove what I say."
"In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage."
"There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this life is a mere
state of probation, wherein neither rest nor recompense is to be
vouchsafed."
"But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?"
Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if a rude finger had pressed a naked
nerve. Caroline felt she had touched what would not bear the slightest
contact.
"My marriage was unhappy," said the lady, summoning courage at last;
"but yet----" She hesitated.
"But yet," suggested Caroline, "not immitigably wretched?"
"Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer tone; "God
mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most
corrosive woe. He can so turn events that from the very same blind, rash
act whence sprang the curse of half our life may flow the blessing of
the remainder. Then I am of a peculiar disposition--I own that--far from
facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought never to have
married. Mine is not the nature easily to find a duplicate or likely to
assimilate with a contrast. I was quite aware of my own ineligibility;
and if I had not been so miserable as a governess, I never should have
married; and then----"
Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed. They entreated her to break the
thick cloud of despair which her previous words had seemed to spread
over life.
"And then, my dear, Mr.--that is, the gentleman I married--was, perhaps,
rather an exceptional than an average character. I hope, at least, the
experience of few has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their
sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind; relief was so
hopeless, redress so unattainable. But, my dear, I do not wish to
dishearten; I only wish to warn you, and to prove that the single should
not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the
worse."
"Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand your kind intentions, but
there is no fear of my falling into the error to which you allude. I, at
least, have no thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to make
myself a position by some other means."
"My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say I have carefully
deliberated, having, indeed, revolved the subject in my thoughts ever
since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I at
present reside with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion. Should
she marry (and that she _will_ marry ere long many circumstances induce
me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity.
I must tell you that I possess a small independency, arising partly from
my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since.
Whenever I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own. I could not
endure to live in solitude. I have no relations whom I care to invite to
close intimacy; for, as you must have observed, and as I have already
avowed, my habits and tastes have their peculiarities. To you, my dear,
I need not say I am attached; with you I am happier than I have ever
been with any living thing" (this was said with marked emphasis). "Your
society I should esteem a very dear privilege--an inestimable privilege,
a comfort, a blessing. You shall come to me, then. Caroline, do you
refuse me? I hope you can love me?"
And with these two abrupt questions she stopped.
"Indeed, I _do_ love you," was the reply. "I should like to live with
you. But you are too kind."
"All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to you. You should be
provided for. But never again say I am _too kind_. You pierce my heart,
child!"
"But, my dear madam--this generosity--I have no claim----"
"Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some things we cannot bear
to hear. Oh! it is late to begin, but I may yet live a few years. I can
never wipe out the past, but perhaps a brief space in the future may
yet be mine."
Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes and
rolled down her cheeks. Caroline kissed her, in her gentle, caressing
way, saying softly, "I love you dearly. Don't cry."
But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head to
her knee, and wept aloud. Nothing could console her till the inward
storm had had its way. At last the agony subsided of itself.
"Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss, "poor lonely
lamb! But come," she added abruptly--"come; we must go home."
For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however,
she calmed down to her wonted manner, fell into her usual characteristic
pace--a peculiar one, like all her movements--and by the time they
reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as
usual, still and shy.