AN EVENING OUT.
One fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone (her uncle
being at Whinbury), and whose long, bright, noiseless, breezeless,
cloudless hours (how many they seemed since sunrise!) had been to her as
desolate as if they had gone over her head in the shadowless and
trackless wastes of Sahara, instead of in the blooming garden of an
English home, she was sitting in the alcove--her task of work on her
knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle, her eyes following and
regulating their movements, her brain working restlessly--when Fanny
came to the door, looked round over the lawn and borders, and not seeing
her whom she sought, called out, "Miss Caroline!"
A low voice answered "Fanny!" It issued from the alcove, and thither
Fanny hastened, a note in her hand, which she delivered to fingers that
hardly seemed to have nerve to hold it. Miss Helstone did not ask whence
it came, and she did not look at it; she let it drop amongst the folds
of her work.
"Joe Scott's son, Harry, brought it," said Fanny.
The girl was no enchantress, and knew no magic spell; yet what she said
took almost magical effect on her young mistress. She lifted her head
with the quick motion of revived sensation; she shot, not a languid, but
a lifelike, questioning glance at Fanny.
"Harry Scott! who sent him?"
"He came from the Hollow."
The dropped note was snatched up eagerly, the seal was broken--it was
read in two seconds. An affectionate billet from Hortense, informing her
young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was
alone to-day, as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing would
give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company to tea, and
the good lady added, she was quite sure such a change would be most
acceptable and beneficial to Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss both
for safe guidance and improving society since the misunderstanding
between Robert and Mr. Helstone had occasioned a separation from her
"meilleure amie, Hortense Gérard Moore." In a postscript she was urged
to put on her bonnet and run down directly.
Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to lay by the brown
holland child's slip she was trimming with braid for the Jew's basket,
to hasten upstairs, cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw
round her shoulders the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as
well her shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the
fairness of her face; glad was she to escape for a few hours the
solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad to run down the
green lane sloping to the Hollow, to scent the fragrance of hedge
flowers sweeter than the perfume of moss-rose or lily. True, she knew
Robert was not at the cottage; but it was delight to go where he had
lately been. So long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his
home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat, felt like a
reunion. As such it revived her; and then Illusion was again following
her in Peri mask. The soft agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and
the air, breathing from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which
whispered, "Robert may come home while you are in his house, and then,
at least, you may look in his face--at least you may give him your hand;
perhaps, for a minute, you may sit beside him."
"Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the comforter and the
consolation.
Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam and flutter of
Caroline's white attire through the branchy garden shrubs, for she
advanced from the cottage porch to meet her. Straight, unbending,
phlegmatic as usual, she came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted
to disorder the dignity of _her_ movements; but she smiled, well pleased
to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and the gentle,
genial strain of her embrace. She led her tenderly in, half deceived and
wholly flattered. Half deceived! had it not been so she would in all
probability have put her to the wicket, and shut her out. Had she known
clearly to whose account the chief share of this childlike joy was to be
placed, Hortense would most likely have felt both shocked and incensed.
Sisters do not like young ladies to fall in love with their brothers.
It seems, if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd
mistake. _They_ do not love these gentlemen--whatever sisterly affection
they may cherish towards them--and that others should, repels them with
a sense of crude romance. The first movement, in short, excited by such
discovery (as with many parents on finding their children to be in love)
is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason--if they be rational
people--corrects the false feeling in time; but if they be irrational,
it is never corrected, and the daughter or sister-in-law is disliked to
the end.
"You would expect to find me alone, from what I said in my note,"
observed Miss Moore, as she conducted Caroline towards the parlour; "but
it was written this morning: since dinner, company has come in."
And opening the door she made visible an ample spread of crimson skirts
overflowing the elbow-chair at the fireside, and above them, presiding
with dignity, a cap more awful than a crown. That cap had never come to
the cottage under a bonnet; no, it had been brought in a vast bag, or
rather a middle-sized balloon of black silk, held wide with whalebone.
The screed, or frill of the cap, stood a quarter of a yard broad round
the face of the wearer. The ribbon, flourishing in puffs and bows about
the head, was of the sort called love-ribbon. There was a good deal of
it, I may say, a very great deal. Mrs. Yorke wore the cap--it became
her; she wore the gown also--it suited her no less.
That great lady was come in a friendly way to take tea with Miss Moore.
It was almost as great and as rare a favour as if the queen were to go
uninvited to share pot-luck with one of her subjects. A higher mark of
distinction she could not show--she who in general scorned visiting and
tea-drinking, and held cheap and stigmatized as "gossips" every maid and
matron of the vicinage.
There was no mistake, however; Miss Moore _was_ a favourite with her.
She had evinced the fact more than once--evinced it by stopping to speak
to her in the churchyard on Sundays; by inviting her, almost hospitably,
to come to Briarmains; evinced it to-day by the grand condescension of a
personal visit. Her reasons for the preference, as assigned by herself,
were that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment, without the least
levity of conversation or carriage; also that, being a foreigner, she
must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She might have added
that her plain aspect, homely, precise dress, and phlegmatic,
unattractive manner were to her so many additional recommendations. It
is certain, at least, that ladies remarkable for the opposite qualities
of beauty, lively bearing, and elegant taste in attire were not often
favoured with her approbation. Whatever gentlemen are apt to admire in
women, Mrs. Yorke condemned; and what they overlook or despise, she
patronized.
Caroline advanced to the mighty matron with some sense of diffidence.
She knew little of Mrs. Yorke, and, as a parson's niece, was doubtful
what sort of a reception she might get. She got a very cool one, and was
glad to hide her discomfiture by turning away to take off her bonnet.
Nor, upon sitting down, was she displeased to be immediately accosted by
a little personage in a blue frock and sash, who started up like some
fairy from the side of the great dame's chair, where she had been
sitting on a footstool, screened from view by the folds of the wide red
gown, and running to Miss Helstone, unceremoniously threw her arms round
her neck and demanded a kiss.
"My mother is not civil to you," said the petitioner, as she received
and repaid a smiling salute, "and Rose there takes no notice of you; it
is their way. If, instead of you, a white angel, with a crown of stars,
had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift
her head at all; but I will be your friend--I have always liked you."
"Jessie, curb that tongue of yours, and repress your forwardness!" said
Mrs. Yorke.
"But, mother, you are so frozen!" expostulated Jessie. "Miss Helstone
has never done you any harm; why can't you be kind to her? You sit so
stiff, and look so cold, and speak so dry--what for? That's just the
fashion in which you treat Miss Shirley Keeldar and every other young
lady who comes to our house. And Rose there is such an aut--aut--I have
forgotten the word, but it means a machine in the shape of a human
being. However, between you, you will drive every soul away from
Briarmains; Martin often says so."
"I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said Rose, speaking from
a corner where she was sitting on the carpet at the foot of a bookcase,
with a volume spread open on her knee.--"Miss Helstone, how do you do?"
she added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed, and then
again casting down her gray, remarkable eyes on the book and returning
to the study of its pages.
Caroline stole a quiet gaze towards her, dwelling on her young, absorbed
countenance, and observing a certain unconscious movement of the mouth
as she read--a movement full of character. Caroline had tact, and she
had fine instinct. She felt that Rose Yorke was a peculiar child--one of
the unique; she knew how to treat her. Approaching quietly, she knelt on
the carpet at her side, and looked over her little shoulder at her book.
It was a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's--"The Italian."
Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently Rose showed her
the attention of asking, ere she turned the leaf, "Are you ready?"
Caroline only nodded.
"Do you like it?" inquired Rose ere long.
"Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully taken with
it."
"Why?"
"It seemed to open with such promise--such foreboding of a most strange
tale to be unfolded."
"And in reading it you feel as if you were far away from England--really
in Italy--under another sort of sky--that blue sky of the south which
travellers describe."
"You are sensible of that, Rose?"
"It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone."
"When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish."
"I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for me. I cannot live
always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with
creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least."
"How much of its outside?"
"First this hemisphere where we live; then the other. I am resolved that
my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in
marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory."
"Like mine! what can you mean, child?"
"Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever shut up in that
glebe-house--a place that, when I pass it, always reminds me of a
windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a
sound from the wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys.
What do you do there?"
"I sew, I read, I learn lessons."
"Are you happy?"
"Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to
do?"
"Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. Remember, however,
that I shall have an object in view; but if you only went on and on,
like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now.
In a day's wandering you would pass many a hill, wood, and watercourse,
each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone out or was
overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright. Nothing
changes in Briarfield rectory. The plaster of the parlour ceilings, the
paper on the walls, the curtains, carpets, chairs, are still the same."
"Is change necessary to happiness?"
"Yes."
"Is it synonymous with it?"
"I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same."
Here Jessie spoke.
"Isn't she mad?" she asked.
"But, Rose," pursued Caroline, "I fear a wanderer's life, for me at
least, would end like that tale you are reading--in disappointment,
vanity, and vexation of spirit."
"Does 'The Italian' so end?"
"I thought so when I read it."
"Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and
leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who
buried his talent in a napkin--despicable sluggard!"
"Rose," observed Mrs. Yorke, "solid satisfaction is only to be realized
by doing one's duty."
"Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten talents, my duty is to
trade with them, and make them ten talents more. Not in the dust of
household drawers shall the coin be interred. I will _not_ deposit it in
a broken-spouted teapot, and shut it up in a china closet among
tea-things. I will _not_ commit it to your work-table to be smothered in
piles of woollen hose. I will _not_ prison it in the linen press to find
shrouds among the sheets. And least of all, mother" (she got up from the
floor)--"least of all will I hide it in a tureen of cold potatoes, to be
ranged with bread, butter, pastry, and ham on the shelves of the
larder."
She stopped, then went on, "Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our
talents will come home some day, and will demand from all an account.
The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern
tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your
daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may
be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own with usury."
"Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told you?"
"Yes, mother."
"Sit down, and do a line of marking."
Rose sat down promptly, and wrought according to orders. After a busy
pause of ten minutes, her mother asked, "Do you think yourself oppressed
now--a victim?"
"No, mother."
"Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all
womanly and domestic employment."
"You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew.
You do right to teach me, and to make me work."
"Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and the making of
sheets?"
"Yes."
"Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then?"
"Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more.
Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and
not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I
bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me."
"You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke;
"how precociously wise in their own conceits! 'I would rather this, I
prefer that'--such is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder
cry, 'I _will_, and I will _not_!'"
"I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard
once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday the spirit moves me to
deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter
it and leave it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not."
"I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke, "to study the
characters of such children as they chance to meet with before they
marry and have any of their own to consider well how they would like
the responsibility of guiding the careless, the labour of persuading the
stubborn, the constant burden and task of training the best."
"But with love it need not be so very difficult," interposed Caroline.
"Mothers love their children most dearly--almost better than they love
themselves."
"Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough, practical part of life
yet to come for you, young miss."
"But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take a little baby into my arms--any poor woman's
infant, for instance--I feel that I love that helpless thing quite
peculiarly, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for
it willingly, if it were delivered over entirely to my care--if it were
quite dependent on me."
"You _feel_! Yes, yes! I dare say, now. You are led a great deal by your
_feelings_, and you think yourself a very sensitive personage, no doubt.
Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to
train your features into an habitually lackadaisical expression, better
suited to a novel-heroine than to a woman who is to make her way in the
real world by dint of common sense?"
"No; I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. Yorke."
"Look in the glass just behind you. Compare the face you see there with
that of any early-rising, hard-working milkmaid."
"My face is a pale one, but it is _not_ sentimental; and most milkmaids,
however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically
fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more, and more
correctly, than milkmaids in general do; consequently, where they would
often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint of reflection,
should act judiciously."
"Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings; you would be guided by
impulse."
"Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings. They were given
me to that end. Whom my feelings teach me to love I _must_ and _shall_
love; and I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings
will induce me to love them. I hope, in that case, all my impulses will
be strong in compelling me to love."
Caroline had a pleasure in saying this with emphasis; she had a pleasure
in daring to say it in Mrs. Yorke's presence. She did not care what
unjust sarcasm might be hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with
anger but excitement, when the ungenial matron answered coolly, "Don't
waste your dramatic effects. That was well said--it was quite fine; but
it is lost on two women--an old wife and an old maid. There should have
been a disengaged gentleman present.--Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind
the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?"
Hortense, who during the chief part of the conversation had been in the
kitchen superintending the preparations for tea, did not yet quite
comprehend the drift of the discourse. She answered, with a puzzled air,
that Robert was at Whinbury. Mrs. Yorke laughed her own peculiar short
laugh.
"Straightforward Miss Moore!" said she patronizingly. "It is like you to
understand my question so literally and answer it so simply. _Your_ mind
comprehends nothing of intrigue. Strange things might go on around you
without your being the wiser; you are not of the class the world calls
sharp-witted."
These equivocal compliments did not seem to please Hortense. She drew
herself up, puckered her black eyebrows, but still looked puzzled.
"I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood,"
she returned; for, indeed, on the possession of these qualities she
peculiarly piqued herself.
"You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound," pursued Mrs. Yorke;
"and you have not the benefit of previous experience to aid you in
discovering when others plot."
Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent speaker intended
she should feel it--in her very heart. She could not even parry the
shafts; she was defenceless for the present. To answer would have been
to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with
troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure
expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the
humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the sufferer was fair
game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking,
sensitive character--a nervous temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate,
and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met
with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual; still
more seldom she found that individual at her mercy, under circumstances
in which she could crush her well. She happened this afternoon to be
specially bilious and morose--as much disposed to gore as any vicious
"mother of the herd." Lowering her large head she made a new charge.
"Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone. Such ladies
as come to try their life's luck here at Hollow's Cottage may, by a very
little clever female artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and
have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's
society, I dare say, miss?"
"Of which cousin's?"
"Oh, of the lady's, _of course_."
"Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me."
"Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by
her spinster friends."
"Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at
the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while
the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and
settled--"Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?"
"To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude, to disgust you
with craft and false sentiment."
"Do I need this lesson?"
"Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern
young lady--morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which
implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in
the ordinary world. The ordinary world--every-day honest folks--are
better than you think them, much better than any bookish, romancing chit
of a girl can be who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle the
parson's garden wall."
"Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse me--indeed, it does not
matter whether you excuse me or not--you have attacked me without
provocation; I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with
my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour you have
attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more
crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That
I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of
yours; that I am fond of books, and indisposed for common gossip, is
still less your business; that I am a 'romancing chit of a girl' is a
mere conjecture on your part. I never romanced to you nor to anybody you
know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be
narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have no just
reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression of your aversion
to yourself. If at any time in future you evince it annoyingly, I shall
answer even less scrupulously than I have done now."
She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken in the
clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud; but her silver accents
thrilled the ear. The speed of the current in her veins was just then as
swift as it was viewless.
Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof, worded with a severity so
simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she
said, nodding her cap approvingly, "She has spirit in her, after
all.--Always speak as honestly as you have done just now," she
continued, "and you'll do."
"I repel a recommendation so offensive," was the answer, delivered in
the same pure key, with the same clear look. "I reject counsel poisoned
by insinuation. It is my right to speak as I think proper; nothing binds
me to converse as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have
done just now, I shall never address any one in a tone so stern or in
language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked insult."
"Mother, you have found your match," pronounced little Jessie, whom the
scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose had heard the whole with an
unmoved face. She now said, "No; Miss Helstone is not my mother's match,
for she allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out in a
few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better.--Mother, you have never hurt
Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She wears armour under her silk dress that
you cannot penetrate."
Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were mutinous. It was
strange that with all her strictness, with all her "strong-mindedness,"
she could gain no command over them. A look from their father had more
influence with them than a lecture from her.
Miss Moore--to whom the position of witness to an altercation in which
she took no part was highly displeasing, as being an unimportant
secondary post--now rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a discourse
which was to prove both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to
each disputant that she had reason to be ashamed of herself, and ought
to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual then addressing
her. Fortunately for her audience, she had not harangued above ten
minutes when Sarah's entrance with the tea-tray called her attention,
first to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a
red necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently to a
pointed remonstrance, to the duty of making tea. After the meal Rose
restored her to good-humour by bringing her guitar and asking for a
song, and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent and sharp
cross-examination about guitar-playing and music in general.
Jessie, meantime, directed her assiduities to Caroline. Sitting on a
stool at her feet, she talked to her, first about religion and then
about politics. Jessie was accustomed at home to drink in a great deal
of what her father said on these subjects, and afterwards in company to
retail, with more wit and fluency than consistency or discretion, his
opinions, antipathies, and preferences. She rated Caroline soundly for
being a member of the Established Church, and for having an uncle a
clergyman. She informed her that she lived on the country, and ought to
work for her living honestly, instead of passing a useless life, and
eating the bread of idleness in the shape of tithes. Thence Jessie
passed to a review of the ministry at that time in office, and a
consideration of its deserts. She made familiar mention of the names of
Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval. Each of these personages she adorned
with a character that might have separately suited Moloch and Belial.
She denounced the war as wholesale murder, and Lord Wellington as a
"hired butcher."
Her auditress listened with exceeding edification. Jessie had something
of the genius of humour in her nature. It was inexpressibly comic to
hear her repeating her sire's denunciations in his nervous northern
Doric; as hearty a little Jacobin as ever pent a free mutinous spirit in
a muslin frock and sash. Not malignant by nature, her language was not
so bitter as it was racy, and the expressive little face gave a piquancy
to every phrase which held a beholder's interest captive.
Caroline chid her when she abused Lord Wellington; but she listened
delighted to a subsequent tirade against the Prince Regent. Jessie
quickly read, in the sparkle of her hearer's eye and the laughter
hovering round her lips, that at last she had hit on a topic that
pleased. Many a time had she heard the fat "Adonis of fifty" discussed
at her father's breakfast-table, and she now gave Mr. Yorke's comments
on the theme--genuine as uttered by his Yorkshire lips.
But, Jessie, I will write about you no more. This is an autumn evening,
wet and wild. There is only one cloud in the sky, but it curtains it
from pole to pole. The wind cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills
of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all
day on that church tower. It rises dark from the stony enclosure of its
graveyard. The nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet.
This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years
ago--a howling, rainy autumn evening too--when certain who had that day
performed a pilgrimage to a grave new-made in a heretic cemetery sat
near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry
and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been
made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence
could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived; and they knew
that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered
their lost darling, and that the sad, sighing gale was mourning above
her buried head. The fire warmed them; life and friendship yet blessed
them; but Jessie lay cold, coffined, solitary--only the sod screening
her from the storm.
* * * * *
Mrs. Yorke folded up her knitting, cut short the music lesson and the
lecture on politics, and concluded her visit to the cottage, at an hour
early enough to ensure her return to Briarmains before the blush of
sunset should quite have faded in heaven, or the path up the fields have
become thoroughly moist with evening dew.
The lady and her daughters being gone, Caroline felt that she also ought
to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's cheek, and trip away homeward. If
she lingered much later dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to
the trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and ironing day
at the rectory, she remembered--Fanny would be busy. Still, she could
not quit her seat at the little parlour window. From no point of view
could the west look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of
jessamine round it, whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but
gray pencil outlines--graceful in form, but colourless in tint--against
the gold incarnadined of a summer evening--against the fire-tinged blue
of an August sky at eight o'clock p.m.
Caroline looked at the wicket-gate, beside which holly-oaks spired up
tall. She looked at the close hedge of privet and laurel fencing in the
garden; her eyes longed to see something more than the shrubs before
they turned from that limited prospect. They longed to see a human
figure, of a certain mould and height, pass the hedge and enter the
gate. A human figure she at last saw--nay, two. Frederick Murgatroyd
went by, carrying a pail of water; Joe Scott followed, dangling on his
forefinger the keys of the mill. They were going to lock up mill and
stables for the night, and then betake themselves home.
"So must I," thought Caroline, as she half rose and sighed.
"This is all folly--heart-breaking folly," she added. "In the first
place, though I should stay till dark there will be no arrival; because
I feel in my heart, Fate has written it down in to-day's page of her
eternal book, that I am not to have the pleasure I long for. In the
second place, if he stepped in this moment, my presence here would be a
chagrin to him, and the consciousness that it must be so would turn half
my blood to ice. His hand would, perhaps, be loose and chill if I put
mine into it; his eye would be clouded if I sought its beam. I should
look up for that kindling, something I have seen in past days, when my
face, or my language, or my disposition had at some happy moment pleased
him; I should discover only darkness. I had better go home."
She took her bonnet from the table where it lay, and was just fastening
the ribbon, when Hortense, directing her attention to a splendid bouquet
of flowers in a glass on the same table, mentioned that Miss Keeldar had
sent them that morning from Fieldhead; and went on to comment on the
guests that lady was at present entertaining, on the bustling life she
had lately been leading; adding divers conjectures that she did not very
well like it, and much wonderment that a person who was so fond of her
own way as the heiress did not find some means of sooner getting rid of
this _cortége_ of relatives.
"But they say she actually will not let Mr. Sympson and his family go,"
she added. "They wanted much to return to the south last week, to be
ready for the reception of the only son, who is expected home from a
tour. She insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends
here in Yorkshire. I dare say she partly does it to oblige Robert and
myself."
"How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline.
"Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know--you must often have
heard----"
"Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the preserves that you
told me to boil in treacle--the congfiters, as you call them--is all
burnt to the pan."
"Les confitures! Elles sont brûlées? Ah, quelle négligence coupable!
Coquine de cuisinière, fille insupportable!"
And mademoiselle, hastily taking from a drawer a large linen apron, and
tying it over her black apron, rushed _éperdue_ into the kitchen,
whence, to speak truth, exhaled an odour of calcined sweets rather
strong than savoury.
The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole day, on the
subject of preserving certain black cherries, hard as marbles, sour as
sloes. Sarah held that sugar was the only orthodox condiment to be used
in that process; mademoiselle maintained--and proved it by the practice
and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother--that
treacle, "mélasse," was infinitely preferable. She had committed an
imprudence in leaving Sarah in charge of the preserving-pan, for her
want of sympathy in the nature of its contents had induced a degree of
carelessness in watching their confection, whereof the result was--dark
and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed; high upbraiding, and sobs rather loud
than deep or real.
Caroline, once more turning to the little mirror, was shading her
ringlets from her cheek to smooth them under her cottage bonnet, certain
that it would not only be useless but unpleasant to stay longer, when,
on the sudden opening of the back-door, there fell an abrupt calm in the
kitchen. The tongues were checked, pulled up as with bit and bridle.
"Was it--was it--Robert?" He often--almost always--entered by the
kitchen way on his return from market. No; it was only Joe Scott, who,
having hemmed significantly thrice--every hem being meant as a lofty
rebuke to the squabbling womankind--said, "Now, I thowt I heerd a
crack?"
None answered.
"And," he continued pragmatically, "as t' maister's comed, and as he'll
enter through this hoyle, I _con_sidered it desirable to step in and let
ye know. A household o' women is nivver fit to be comed on wi'out
warning. Here he is.--Walk forrard, sir. They war playing up queerly,
but I think I've quietened 'em."
Another person, it was now audible, entered. Joe Scott proceeded with
his rebukes.
"What d'ye mean by being all i' darkness? Sarah, thou quean, canst t'
not light a candle? It war sundown an hour syne. He'll brak his shins
agean some o' yer pots, and tables, and stuff.--Tak tent o' this
baking-bowl, sir; they've set it i' yer way, fair as if they did it i'
malice."
To Joe's observations succeeded a confused sort of pause, which
Caroline, though she was listening with both her ears, could not
understand. It was very brief. A cry broke it--a sound of surprise,
followed by the sound of a kiss; ejaculations, but half articulate,
succeeded.
"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Est-ce que je m'y attendais?" were the words
chiefly to be distinguished.
"Et tu te portes toujours bien, bonne sœur?" inquired another
voice--Robert's, certainly.
Caroline was puzzled. Obeying an impulse the wisdom of which she had not
time to question, she escaped from the little parlour, by way of leaving
the coast clear, and running upstairs took up a position at the head of
the banisters, whence she could make further observations ere presenting
herself. It was considerably past sunset now; dusk filled the passage,
yet not such deep dusk but that she could presently see Robert and
Hortense traverse it.
"Caroline! Caroline!" called Hortense, a moment afterwards, "venez voir
mon frère!"
"Strange," commented Miss Helstone, "passing strange! What does this
unwonted excitement about such an every-day occurrence as a return from
market portend? She has not lost her senses, has she? Surely the burnt
treacle has not crazed her?"
She descended in a subdued flutter. Yet more was she fluttered when
Hortense seized her hand at the parlour door, and leading her to Robert,
who stood in bodily presence, tall and dark against the one window,
presented her with a mixture of agitation and formality, as though they
had been utter strangers, and this was their first mutual introduction.
Increasing puzzle! He bowed rather awkwardly, and turning from her with
a stranger's embarrassment, he met the doubtful light from the window.
It fell on his face, and the enigma of the dream (a dream it seemed)
was at its height. She saw a visage like and unlike--Robert, and no
Robert.
"What is the matter?" said Caroline. "Is my sight wrong? Is it my
cousin?"
"Certainly it is your cousin," asserted Hortense.
Then who was this now coming through the passage--now entering the room?
Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert--the real Robert, as she felt
at once.
"Well," said he, smiling at her questioning, astonished face, "which is
which?"
"Ah, this is _you_!" was the answer.
He laughed. "I believe it is _me_. And do you know who _he_ is? You
never saw him before, but you have heard of him."
She had gathered her senses now.
"It _can_ be only one person--your brother, since it is so like you; my
other cousin, Louis."
"Clever little Œdipus! you would have baffled the Sphinx! But now, see
us together.--Change places; change again, to confuse her, Louis.--Which
is the old love now, Lina?"
"As if it were possible to make a mistake when you speak! You should
have told Hortense to ask. But you are not so much alike. It is only
your height, your figure, and complexion that are so similar."
"And I am Robert, am I not?" asked the newcomer, making a first effort
to overcome what seemed his natural shyness.
Caroline shook her head gently. A soft, expressive ray from her eye
beamed on the real Robert. It said much.
She was not permitted to quit her cousins soon. Robert himself was
peremptory in obliging her to remain. Glad, simple, and affable in her
demeanour (glad for this night, at least), in light, bright spirits for
the time, she was too pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be
willingly parted with by any of them. Louis seemed naturally rather a
grave, still, retiring man; but the Caroline of this evening, which was
not (as you know, reader) the Caroline of every day, thawed his reserve,
and cheered his gravity soon. He sat near her and talked to her. She
already knew his vocation was that of tuition. She learned now he had
for some years been the tutor of Mr. Sympson's son; that he had been
travelling with him, and had accompanied him to the north. She inquired
if he liked his post, but got a look in reply which did not invite or
license further question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She
thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a face as
Louis's; for he _had_ a sensible face, though not handsome, she
considered, when seen near Robert's. She turned to make the comparison.
Robert was leaning against the wall, a little behind her, turning over
the leaves of a book of engravings, and probably listening, at the same
time, to the dialogue between her and Louis.
"How could I think them alike?" she asked herself. "I see now it is
Hortense Louis resembles, not Robert."
And this was in part true. He had the shorter nose and longer upper lip
of his sister rather than the fine traits of his brother. He had her
mould of mouth and chin--all less decisive, accurate, and clear than
those of the young mill-owner. His air, though deliberate and
reflective, could scarcely be called prompt and acute. You felt, in
sitting near and looking up at him, that a slower and probably a more
benignant nature than that of the elder Moore shed calm on your
impressions.
Robert--perhaps aware that Caroline's glance had wandered towards and
dwelt upon him, though he had neither met nor answered it--put down the
book of engravings, and approaching, took a seat at her side. She
resumed her conversation with Louis, but while she talked to him her
thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side from which her face
was half averted. She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis;
but she bent before the secret power of Robert. To be so near
him--though he was silent, though he did not touch so much as her
scarf-fringe or the white hem of her dress--affected her like a spell.
Had she been obliged to speak to him _only_, it would have quelled, but,
at liberty to address another, it excited her. Her discourse flowed
freely; it was gay, playful, eloquent. The indulgent look and placid
manner of her auditor encouraged her to ease; the sober pleasure
expressed by his smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature.
She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage, and as Robert was
a spectator, the consciousness contented her. Had he been called away,
collapse would at once have succeeded stimulus.
But her enjoyment was not long to shine full-orbed; a cloud soon crossed
it.
Hortense, who for some time had been on the move ordering supper, and
was now clearing the little table of some books, etc., to make room for
the tray, called Robert's attention to the glass of flowers, the carmine
and snow and gold of whose petals looked radiant indeed by candlelight.
"They came from Fieldhead," she said, "intended as a gift to you, no
doubt. We know who is the favourite there; not I, I'm sure."
It was a wonder to hear Hortense jest--a sign that her spirits were at
high-water mark indeed.
"We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favourite?" observed
Louis.
"Mon cher," replied Hortense, "Robert--c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus
précieux au monde; à côté de lui le reste du genre humain n'est que du
rebut.--N'ai-je pas raison, mon enfant?" she added, appealing to
Caroline.
Caroline was obliged to reply, "Yes," and her beacon was quenched. Her
star withdrew as she spoke.
"Et toi, Robert?" inquired Louis.
"When you shall have an opportunity, ask herself," was the quiet answer.
Whether he reddened or paled Caroline did not examine. She discovered
that it was late, and she must go home. Home she would go; not even
Robert could detain her now.