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

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      CHAPTER XIV.

      SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS.

      “Of course, I know he will marry Shirley,” were her first words when she rose in the morning. “And he ought to marry her. She can help him,” she added firmly. “But I shall be forgotten when they are married,” was the cruel succeeding thought. “Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten! And what — what shall I do when Robert is taken quite from me? Where shall I turn? My Robert! I wish I could justly call him mine. But I am poverty and incapacity; Shirley is wealth and power. And she is beauty too, and love. I cannot deny it. This is no sordid suit. She loves him — not with inferior feelings. She loves, or will love, as he must feel proud to be loved. Not a valid objection can be made. Let them be married, then. But afterwards I shall be nothing to him. As for being his sister, and all that stuff, I despise it. I will either be all or nothing to a man like Robert; no feeble shuffling or false cant is endurable. Once let that pair be united, and I will certainly leave them. As for lingering about, playing the hypocrite, and pretending to calm sentiments of friendship, when my soul will be wrung with other feelings, I shall not descend to such degradation. As little could I fill the place of their mutual friend as that of their deadly foe; as little could I stand between them as trample over them. Robert is a first-rate man — in my eyes. I have loved, do love, and must love him. I would be his wife if I could; as I cannot, I must go where I shall never see him. There is but one alternative — to cleave to him as if I were a part of him, or to be sundered from him wide as the two poles of a sphere. — Sunder me then, Providence. Part us speedily.”

      Some such aspirations as these were again working in her mind late in the afternoon, when the apparition of one of the personages haunting her thoughts passed the parlour window. Miss Keeldar sauntered slowly by, her gait, her countenance, wearing that mixture of wistfulness and carelessness which, when quiescent, was the wonted cast of her look and character of her bearing. When animated, the carelessness quite vanished, the wistfulness became blent with a genial gaiety, seasoning the laugh, the smile, the glance, with a unique flavour of sentiment, so that mirth from her never resembled “the crackling of thorns under a pot.”

      “What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you promised?” was her address to Caroline as she entered the room.

      “I was not in the humour,” replied Miss Helstone, very truly.

      Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye.

      “No,” she said; “I see you are not in the humour for loving me. You are in one of your sunless, inclement moods, when one feels a fellow-creature’s presence is not welcome to you. You have such moods. Are you aware of it?”

      “Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?”

      “Yes. I am come to have my tea, and must have it before I go. I shall take the liberty, then, of removing my bonnet, without being asked.”

      And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her hands behind her.

      “A pretty expression you have in your countenance,” she went on, still gazing keenly, though not inimically — rather indeed pityingly — at Caroline. “Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking, wounded deer. Are you afraid Shirley will worry you if she discovers that you are hurt, and that you bleed?”

      “I never do fear Shirley.”

      “But sometimes you dislike her; often you avoid her. Shirley can feel when she is slighted and shunned. If you had not walked home in the company you did last night, you would have been a different girl to-day. What time did you reach the rectory?”

      “By ten.”

      “Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you, or Moore, who lingered so?”

      “Shirley, you talk nonsense.”

      “He talked nonsense — that I doubt not; or he looked it, which is a thousand times worse. I see the reflection of his eyes on your forehead at this moment. I feel disposed to call him out, if I could only get a trustworthy second. I feel desperately irritated. I felt so last night, and have felt it all day.”

      “You don’t ask me why,” she proceeded, after a pause, “you little silent, over-modest thing; and you don’t deserve that I should pour out my secrets into your lap without an invitation. Upon my word, I could have found it in my heart to have dogged Moore yesterday evening with dire intent. I have pistols, and can use them.”

      “Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot — me or Robert?”

      “Neither, perhaps. Perhaps myself — more likely a bat or a tree-bough. He is a puppy, your cousin — a quiet, serious, sensible, judicious, ambitious puppy. I see him standing before me, talking his half-stern, half-gentle talk, bearing me down (as I am very conscious he does) with his fixity of purpose, etc.; and then — I have no patience with him!”

      Miss Keeldar started off on a rapid walk through the room, repeating energetically that she had no patience with men in general, and with her tenant in particular.

      “You are mistaken,” urged Caroline, in some anxiety. “Robert is no puppy or male flirt; I can vouch for that.”

      “You vouch for it! Do you think I’ll take your word on the subject? There is no one’s testimony I would not credit sooner than yours. To advance Moore’s fortune you would cut off your right hand.”

      “But not tell lies. And if I speak the truth, I must assure you that he was just civil to me last night — that was all.”

      “I never asked what he was. I can guess. I saw him from the window take your hand in his long fingers, just as he went out at my gate.”

      “That is nothing. I am not a stranger, you know. I am an old acquaintance, and his cousin.”

      “I feel indignant, and that is the long and short of the matter,” responded Miss Keeldar. “All my comfort,” she added presently, “is broken up by his manœuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me. Without him we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again he crosses and obscures the disc I want always to see clear; ever and anon he renders me to you a mere bore and nuisance.”

      “No, Shirley, no.”

      “He does. You did not want my society this afternoon, and I feel it hard. You are naturally somewhat reserved, but I am a social personage, who cannot live alone. If we were but left unmolested, I have that regard for you that I could bear you in my presence for ever, and not for the fraction of a second do I ever wish to be rid of you. You cannot say as much respecting me.”

      “Shirley, I can say anything you wish. Shirley, I like you.”

      “You will wish me at Jericho tomorrow, Lina.”

      “I shall not. I am every day growing more accustomed to — fonder of you. You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once; but you are so much better than common — you are so different to everyday young ladies — I esteem you, I value you; you are never a burden to me — never. Do you believe what I say?”

      “Partly,” replied Miss Keeldar, smiling rather incredulously; “but you are a peculiar personage. СКАЧАТЬ