The Complete Works: Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Patrick & Branwell Brontë. Anne Bronte

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СКАЧАТЬ and were formless. Positively, as I reached the spot, there was nothing left but the sweep of a white muslin curtain, and a balsam plant in a flower-pot, covered with a flush of bloom. ‘Sic transit,’ et cetera.”

      “It was not my wraith, then? I almost thought it was.”

      “No; only gauze, crockery, and pink blossom — a sample of earthly illusions.”

      “I wonder you have time for such illusions, occupied as your mind must be.”

      “So do I. But I find in myself, Lina, two natures — one for the world and business, and one for home and leisure. Gérard Moore is a hard dog, brought up to mill and market; the person you call your cousin Robert is sometimes a dreamer, who lives elsewhere than in Cloth-hall and counting-house.”

      “Your two natures agree with you. I think you are looking in good spirits and health. You have quite lost that harassed air which it often pained one to see in your face a few months ago.”

      “Do you observe that? Certainly I am disentangled of some difficulties. I have got clear of some shoals, and have more sea-room.”

      “And, with a fair wind, you may now hope to make a prosperous voyage?”

      “I may hope it — yes — but hope is deceptive. There is no controlling wind or wave. Gusts and swells perpetually trouble the mariner’s course; he dare not dismiss from his mind the expectation of tempest.”

      “But you are ready for a breeze; you are a good seaman, an able commander. You are a skilful pilot, Robert; you will weather the storm.”

      “My kinswoman always thinks the best of me, but I will take her words for a propitious omen. I will consider that in meeting her tonight I have met with one of those birds whose appearance is to the sailor the harbinger of good luck.”

      “A poor harbinger of good luck is she who can do nothing, who has no power. I feel my incapacity. It is of no use saying I have the will to serve you when I cannot prove it. Yet I have that will. I wish you success. I wish you high fortune and true happiness.”

      “When did you ever wish me anything else? What is Fanny waiting for? I told her to walk on. Oh! we have reached the churchyard. Then we are to part here, I suppose. We might have sat a few minutes in the church porch, if the girl had not been with us. It is so fine a night, so summer-mild and still, I have no particular wish to return yet to the Hollow.”

      “But we cannot sit in the porch now, Robert.”

      Caroline said this because Moore was turning her round towards it.

      “Perhaps not. But tell Fanny to go in. Say we are coming. A few minutes will make no difference.”

      The church clock struck ten.

      “My uncle will be coming out to take his usual sentinel round, and he always surveys the church and churchyard.”

      “And if he does? If it were not for Fanny, who knows we are here, I should find pleasure in dodging and eluding him. We could be under the east window when he is at the porch; as he came round to the north side we could wheel off to the south; we might at a pinch hide behind some of the monuments. That tall erection of the Wynnes would screen us completely.”

      “Robert, what good spirits you have! Go! go!” added Caroline hastily. “I hear the front door — — “

      “I don’t want to go; on the contrary, I want to stay.”

      “You know my uncle will be terribly angry. He forbade me to see you because you are a Jacobin.”

      “A queer Jacobin!”

      “Go, Robert, he is coming; I hear him cough.”

      “Diable! It is strange — what a pertinacious wish I feel to stay!”

      “You remember what he did to Fanny’s — “ began Caroline, and stopped abruptly short. “Sweetheart” was the word that ought to have followed, but she could not utter it. It seemed calculated to suggest ideas she had no intention to suggest — ideas delusive and disturbing. Moore was less scrupulous. “Fanny’s sweetheart?” he said at once. “He gave him a shower-bath under the pump, did he not? He’d do as much for me, I dare say, with pleasure. I should like to provoke the old Turk — not, however, against you. But he would make a distinction between a cousin and a lover, would he not?”

      “Oh, he would not think of you in that way, of course not; his quarrel with you is entirely political. Yet I should not like the breach to be widened, and he is so testy. Here he is at the garden gate. For your own sake and mine, Robert, go!”

      The beseeching words were aided by a beseeching gesture and a more beseeching look. Moore covered her clasped hands an instant with his, answered her upward by a downward gave, gaze said “Goodnight!” and went.

      Caroline was in a moment at the kitchen door behind Fanny. The shadow of the shovel-hat at that very instant fell on a moonlit tomb. The rector emerged, erect as a cane, from his garden, and proceeded in slow march, his hands behind him, down the cemetery. Moore was almost caught. He had to “dodge” after all, to coast round the church, and finally to bend his tall form behind the Wynnes’ ambitious monument. There he was forced to hide full ten minutes, kneeling with one knee on the turf, his hat off, his curls bare to the dew, his dark eye shining, and his lips parted with inward laughter at his position; for the rector meantime stood coolly star-gazing, and taking snuff within three feet of him.

      It happened, however, that Mr. Helstone had no suspicion whatever on his mind; for being usually but vaguely informed of his niece’s movements, not thinking it worth while to follow them closely, he was not aware that she had been out at all that day, and imagined her then occupied with book or work in her chamber — where, indeed, she was by this time, though not absorbed in the tranquil employment he ascribed to her, but standing at her window with fast-throbbing heart, peeping anxiously from behind the blind, watching for her uncle to re-enter and her cousin to escape. And at last she was gratified. She heard Mr. Helstone come in; she saw Robert stride the tombs and vault the wall; she then went down to prayers. When she returned to her chamber, it was to meet the memory of Robert. Slumber’s visitation was long averted. Long she sat at her lattice, long gazed down on the old garden and older church, on the tombs laid out all gray and calm, and clear in moonlight. She followed the steps of the night, on its pathway of stars, far into the “wee sma’ hours ayont the twal’.” She was with Moore, in spirit, the whole time; she was at his side; she heard his voice; she gave her hand into his hand; it rested warm in his fingers. When the church clock struck, when any other sound stirred, when a little mouse familiar to her chamber — an intruder for which she would never permit Fanny to lay a trap — came rattling amongst the links of her locket-chain, her one ring, and another trinket or two on the toilet-table, to nibble a bit of biscuit laid ready for it, she looked up, recalled momentarily to the real. Then she said half aloud, as if deprecating the accusation of some unseen and unheard monitor, “I am not cherishing love dreams; I am only thinking because I cannot sleep. Of course, I know he will marry Shirley.”

      With returning silence, with the lull of the chime, and the retreat of her small untamed and unknown protégé, she still resumed the dream, nestling to the vision’s side — listening to, conversing with it. It paled at last. As dawn approached, the setting stars and breaking day dimmed the creation of fancy; the wakened song of birds hushed her whispers. The tale full of fire, quick with interest, borne away by the morning wind, became a vague murmur. The shape that, seen in a moonbeam, lived, had a СКАЧАТЬ