LOUIS MOORE.
Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it
better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own
head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the
real world very patiently.
How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore--Miss Keeldar, the
whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry--are gone to Nunnely. Sir
Philip would have them come; he wished to make them acquainted with his
mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as the
baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have
made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet
him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the
thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather
have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the
wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in
the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him
to-night; but not the boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother,
nor his patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.
This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The
wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and
rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but
tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight
tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she
gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for
his goddess to-night. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it
is well, for to-night she welcomes Æolus.
Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar round the other
gable and along the hall-front. This end was sheltered. He wanted no
shelter; he desired no subdued sounds or screened position.
"All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick at heart of this
cell."
He left it, and went where the casements, larger and freer than the
branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the
dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and sweeping vision of the
autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The
broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon
shone on every floor and wall.
Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from
parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and
polished, and fireless like the _salon_. The hearth is hot and ruddy;
the cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug
is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair near it.
Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so,
could you see him standing before it. There is as much interest now in
his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household
solitude he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it.
He makes discoveries. A bag--a small satin bag--hangs on the chair-back.
The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen,
a crimson berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean,
delicate glove--these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand
they strew. Order forbids details in a picture--she puts them tidily
away; but details give charm.
Moore spoke.
"Her mark," he said. "Here she has been--careless, attractive
thing!--called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and
put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints?
Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There
is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand never settles in
displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had
trickled a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss.
Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in
admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering?
soliloquizing? Stop that."
He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for
his evening's comfort.
He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut
out sovereign and court and starry armies; he added fuel to the hot but
fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the
table; he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand; and
then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small,
thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in
a cramp, compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy.
Stoop over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he scribbles.
"It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am
certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room, sit
opposite her chair, rest my elbow on her table, have her little
mementoes about me.
"I used rather to like Solitude--to fancy her a somewhat quiet and
serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone
mountain-passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of
their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty
in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart
easier when I held her to it--all mute, but majestic.
"Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and
sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me,
asked my protection, appealed to my strength--since that hour I abhor
Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and
mate of Death!
"It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my
heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil
I can say to it what I will--say what I dare utter to nothing
living--say what I dare not _think_ aloud.
"We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when
I was alone in the drawing-room, seeking a book of Henry's, she entered,
dressed for a concert at Stilbro'. Shyness--_her_ shyness, not
mine--drew a silver veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read
about 'maiden modesty,' but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words
are good and appropriate words. As she passed to the window, after
tacitly but gracefully recognizing me, I could call her nothing in my
own mind save 'stainless virgin.' To my perception, a delicate
splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be
the most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in truth that
shyness of hers touched me exquisitely; it flattered my finest
sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive with a life
of Paradise, as she turned _her_ glance from _my_ glance, and softly
averted her head to hide the suffusion of her cheek.
"I know this is the talk of a dreamer--of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I
_do_ dream. I _will_ dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance
into my prosaic composition, how can I help it?
"What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing!
I see her now looking up into my face, and entreating me to prevent them
from smothering her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic. I
see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of
sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret tear drop quietly from her
eyelash. She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I
despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at
once near her and above her--to be conscious of a natural right and
power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.
"I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her
foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, that
fold her about with my love, and that for a most selfish but
deeply-natural reason. These faults are the steps by which I mount to
ascendency over her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial mound, without
inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is the natural
hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose slope invites ascent,
whose summit it is pleasure to gain.
"To leave metaphor. It delights my eye to look on her. She suits me. If
I were a king and she the housemaid that swept my palace-stairs, across
all that space between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a true
pulse would beat for her in my heart, though an unspanned gulf made
acquaintance impossible. If I were a gentleman, and she waited on me as
a servant, I could not help liking that Shirley. Take from her her
education; take her ornaments, her sumptuous dress, all extrinsic
advantages; take all grace, but such as the symmetry of her form renders
inevitable; present her to me at a cottage door, in a stuff gown; let
her offer me there a draught of water, with that smile, with that warm
good-will with which she now dispenses manorial hospitality--I should
like her. I should wish to stay an hour; I should linger to talk with
that rustic. I should not feel as I _now_ do; I should find in her
nothing divine; but whenever I met the young peasant, it would be with
pleasure; whenever I left her, it would be with regret.
"How culpably careless in her to leave her desk open, where I know she
has money! In the lock hang the keys of all her repositories, of her
very jewel-casket. There is a purse in that little satin bag; I see the
tassel of silver beads hanging out. That spectacle would provoke my
brother Robert. All her little failings would, I know, be a source of
irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I
delight to find her at fault; and were I always resident with her, I am
aware she would be no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She
would just give me something to do, to rectify--a theme for my tutor
lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he
does wrong--and that is very seldom, dear, excellent lad!--a word
suffices. Often I do no more than shake my head. But the moment her
_minois mutin_ meets my eye, expostulatory words crowd to my lips. From
a taciturn man I believe she would transform me into a talker. Whence
comes the delight I take in that talk? It puzzles myself sometimes. The
more _crâne, malin, taquin_ is her mood, consequently the clearer
occasion she gives me for disapprobation, the more I seek her, the
better I like her. She is never wilder than when equipped in her habit
and hat, never less manageable than when she and Zoë come in fiery from
a race with the wind on the hills; and I confess it--to this mute page I
may confess it--I have waited an hour in the court for the chance of
witnessing her return, and for the dearer chance of receiving her in my
arms from the saddle. I have noticed (again it is to this page only I
would make the remark) that she will never permit any man but myself to
render her that assistance. I have seen her politely decline Sir Philip
Nunnely's aid. She is always mighty gentle with her young baronet,
mighty tender for his feelings, forsooth, and of his very thin-skinned
_amour propre_. I have marked her haughtily reject Sam Wynne's. Now I
know--my heart knows it, for it has felt it--that she resigns herself to
me unreluctantly. Is she conscious how my strength rejoices to serve
her? I myself am not her slave--I declare it--but my faculties gather
to her beauty, like the genii to the glisten of the lamp. All my
knowledge, all my prudence, all my calm, and all my power stand in her
presence humbly waiting a task. How glad they are when a mandate comes!
What joy they take in the toils she assigns! Does she know it?
"I have called her careless. It is remarkable that her carelessness
never compromises her refinement. Indeed, through this very loophole of
character, the reality, depth, genuineness of that refinement may be
ascertained. A whole garment sometimes covers meagreness and
malformation; through a rent sleeve a fair round arm may be revealed. I
have seen and handled many of her possessions, because they are
frequently astray. I never saw anything that did not proclaim the
lady--nothing sordid, nothing soiled. In one sense she is as scrupulous
as, in another, she is unthinking. As a peasant girl, she would go ever
trim and cleanly. Look at the pure kid of this little glove, at the
fresh, unsullied satin of the bag.
"What a difference there is between S. and that pearl C. H.! Caroline, I
fancy, is the soul of conscientious punctuality and nice exactitude. She
would precisely suit the domestic habits of a certain fastidious kinsman
of mine--so delicate, dexterous, quaint, quick, quiet--all done to a
minute, all arranged to a strawbreadth. She would suit Robert. But what
could _I_ do with anything so nearly faultless? _She_ is my equal, poor
as myself. She is certainly pretty: a little Raffaelle head
hers--Raffaelle in feature, quite English in expression, all insular
grace and purity; but where is there anything to alter, anything to
endure, anything to reprimand, to be anxious about? There she is, a lily
of the valley, untinted, needing no tint. What change could improve her?
What pencil dare to paint? _My_ sweetheart, if I ever have one, must
bear nearer affinity to the rose--a sweet, lively delight guarded with
prickly peril. _My_ wife, if I ever marry, must stir my great frame with
a sting now and then; she must furnish use to her husband's vast mass of
patience. I was not made so enduring to be mated with a lamb; I should
find more congenial responsibility in the charge of a young lioness or
leopardess. I like few things sweet but what are likewise pungent--few
things bright but what are likewise hot. I like the summer day, whose
sun makes fruit blush and corn blanch. Beauty is never so beautiful as
when, if I tease it, it wreathes back on me with spirit. Fascination is
never so imperial as when, roused and half ireful, she threatens
transformation to fierceness. I fear I should tire of the mute,
monotonous innocence of the lamb; I should ere long feel as burdensome
the nestling dove which never stirred in my bosom; but my patience would
exult in stilling the flutterings and training the energies of the
restless merlin. In managing the wild instincts of the scarce manageable
_bête fauve_ my powers would revel.
"O my pupil! O Peri! too mutinous for heaven, too innocent for hell,
never shall I do more than see, and worship, and wish for thee. Alas!
knowing I could make thee happy, will it be my doom to see thee
possessed by those who have not that power?
"However kindly the hand, if it is feeble, it cannot bend Shirley; and
she must be bent. It cannot curb her; and she must be curbed.
"Beware, Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see you walking or sitting at her
side, and observe her lips compressed, or her brow knit, in resolute
endurance of some trait of your character which she neither admires nor
likes, in determined toleration of some weakness she believes atoned for
by a virtue, but which annoys her despite that belief; I never mark the
grave glow of her face, the unsmiling sparkle of her eye, the slight
recoil of her whole frame when you draw a little too near, and gaze a
little too expressively, and whisper a little too warmly--I never
witness these things but I think of the fable of Semele reversed.
"It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize her fatal
longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his god-head. It is a priest
of Juno that stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an
Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams.
There is divine madness upon him. He loves the idol he serves, and prays
day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and that the Ox-eyed may smile
on her votary. She has heard; she will be propitious. All Argos
slumbers. The doors of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the
altar.
"A shock of heaven and earth is felt--not by the slumbering city, only
by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken in his fanaticism. In the
midst of silence, with no preluding sound, he is wrapped in sudden
light. Through the roof, through the rent, wide-yawning, vast,
white-blazing blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent, dread as
the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked. Withdraw--forbear to
look--I am blinded. I hear in that fane an unspeakable sound. Would that
I could not hear it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly
between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it!
"A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the cool dawn of
morning. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine
is shivered, the marble pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia's
statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale.
No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no more.
* * * * *
"There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys. She
will be seeking them to-morrow; she will have to come to me. I hear her:
'Mr. Moore, have you seen my keys?'
"So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance, looking
ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will
tantalize her, keep her with me, expecting, doubting; and when I _do_
restore them, it shall not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too,
and the purse; the glove--pen--seal. She shall wring them all out of me
slowly and separately--only by confession, penitence, entreaty. I never
can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her head, or a ribbon of her dress,
but I will make privileges for myself. Every feature of her face, her
bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know, for my
pleasure--display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to
delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her
slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing."
He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.