Shirley Part 28

"It is."

"Were you ever there?"

"Many a time."

"In the heart of it?"

"Yes."

"What is it like?"

"It is like an encampment of forest sons of Anak. The trees are huge and old. When you stand at their roots, the summits seem in another region. The trunks remain still and firm as pillars, while the boughs sway to every breeze. In the deepest calm their leaves are never quite hushed, and in high wind a flood rushes, a sea thunders above you."

"Was it not one of Robin Hood's haunts?"

"Yes, and there are mementos of him still existing. To penetrate into Nunnwood, Miss Keeldar, is to go far back into the dim days of old. Can you see a break in the forest, about the centre?"

"Yes, distinctly."

"That break is a dell-a deep, hollow cup, lined with turf as green and short as the sod of this common. The very oldest of the trees, gnarled mighty oaks, crowd about185 the brink of this dell. In the bottom lie the ruins of a nunnery."

"We will go-you and I alone, Caroline-to that wood, early some fine summer morning, and spend a long day there. We can take pencils and sketch-books, and any interesting reading book we like; and of course we shall take something to eat. I have two little baskets, in which Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper, might pack our provisions, and we could each carry our own. It would not tire you too much to walk so far?"

"Oh no; especially if we rested the whole day in the wood. And I know all the pleasantest spots. I know where we could get nuts in nutting time; I know where wild strawberries abound; I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded, some a sober gray, some gem-green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect, picture-like effects-rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, cl.u.s.tered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated; and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you."

"You would be dull with me alone?"

"I should not. I think we should suit; and what third person is there whose presence would not spoil our pleasure?"

"Indeed, I know of none about our own ages-no lady at least; and as to gentlemen--"

"An excursion becomes quite a different thing when there are gentlemen of the party," interrupted Caroline.

"I agree with you-quite a different thing to what we were proposing."

"We were going simply to see the old trees, the old ruins; to pa.s.s a day in old times, surrounded by olden silence, and above all by quietude."

"You are right; and the presence of gentlemen dispels the last charm, I think. If they are of the wrong sort, like your Malones, and your young Sykes, and Wynnes, irritation takes the place of serenity. If they are of the right sort, there is still a change; I can hardly tell what change-one easy to feel, difficult to describe."

"We forget Nature, imprimis."

"And then Nature forgets us, covers her vast calm brow with a dim veil, conceals her face, and withdraws the peaceful186 joy with which, if we had been content to worship her only, she would have filled our hearts."

"What does she give us instead?"

"More elation and more anxiety; an excitement that steals the hours away fast, and a trouble that ruffles their course."

"Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe," remarked Caroline sagely. "I have gone to Nunnwood with a large party-all the curates and some other gentry of these parts, together with sundry ladies-and I found the affair insufferably tedious and absurd; and I have gone quite alone, or accompanied but by f.a.n.n.y, who sat in the woodman's hut and sewed, or talked to the goodwife, while I roamed about and made sketches, or read; and I have enjoyed much happiness of a quiet kind all day long. But that was when I was young-two years ago."

"Did you ever go with your cousin, Robert Moore?"

"Yes; once."

"What sort of a companion is he on these occasions?"

"A cousin, you know, is different to a stranger."

"I am aware of that; but cousins, if they are stupid, are still more insupportable than strangers, because you cannot so easily keep them at a distance. But your cousin is not stupid?"

"No; but--"

"Well?"

"If the company of fools irritates, as you say, the society of clever men leaves its own peculiar pain also. Where the goodness or talent of your friend is beyond and above all doubt, your own worthiness to be his a.s.sociate often becomes a matter of question."

"Oh! there I cannot follow you. That crotchet is not one I should choose to entertain for an instant. I consider myself not unworthy to be the a.s.sociate of the best of them-of gentlemen, I mean-though that is saying a great deal. Where they are good, they are very good, I believe. Your uncle, by-the-bye, is not a bad specimen of the elderly gentleman. I am always glad to see his brown, keen, sensible old face, either in my own house or any other. Are you fond of him? Is he kind to you? Now, speak the truth."

"He has brought me up from childhood, I doubt not, precisely as he would have brought up his own daughter, if he had had one; and that is kindness. But I am not187 fond of him. I would rather be out of his presence than in it."

"Strange, when he has the art of making himself so agreeable."

"Yes, in company; but he is stern and silent at home. As he puts away his cane and shovel-hat in the rectory hall, so he locks his liveliness in his book-case and study-desk: the knitted brow and brief word for the fireside; the smile, the jest, the witty sally for society."

"Is he tyrannical?"

"Not in the least. He is neither tyrannical nor hypocritical. He is simply a man who is rather liberal than good-natured, rather brilliant than genial, rather scrupulously equitable than truly just-if you can understand such superfine distinctions."

"Oh yes! Good-nature implies indulgence, which he has not; geniality, warmth of heart, which he does not own; and genuine justice is the offspring of sympathy and considerateness, of which, I can well conceive, my bronzed old friend is quite innocent."

"I often wonder, Shirley, whether most men resemble my uncle in their domestic relations; whether it is necessary to be new and unfamiliar to them in order to seem agreeable or estimable in their eyes; and whether it is impossible to their natures to retain a constant interest and affection for those they see every day."

"I don't know. I can't clear up your doubts. I ponder over similar ones myself sometimes. But, to tell you a secret, if I were convinced that they are necessarily and universally different from us-fickle, soon petrifying, unsympathizing-I would never marry. I should not like to find out that what I loved did not love me, that it was weary of me, and that whatever effort I might make to please would hereafter be worse than useless, since it was inevitably in its nature to change and become indifferent. That discovery once made, what should I long for? To go away, to remove from a presence where my society gave no pleasure."

"But you could not if you were married."

"No, I could not. There it is. I could never be my own mistress more. A terrible thought! It suffocates me! Nothing irks me like the idea of being a burden and a bore-an inevitable burden, a ceaseless bore! Now, when I feel my company superfluous, I can comfortably fold my188 independence round me like a mantle, and drop my pride like a veil, and withdraw to solitude. If married, that could not be."

"I wonder we don't all make up our minds to remain single," said Caroline. "We should if we listened to the wisdom of experience. My uncle always speaks of marriage as a burden; and I believe whenever he hears of a man being married he invariably regards him as a fool, or, at any rate, as doing a foolish thing."

"But, Caroline, men are not all like your uncle. Surely not. I hope not."

She paused and mused.

"I suppose we each find an exception in the one we love, till we are married," suggested Caroline.

"I suppose so. And this exception we believe to be of sterling materials. We fancy it like ourselves; we imagine a sense of harmony. We think his voice gives the softest, truest promise of a heart that will never harden against us; we read in his eyes that faithful feeling-affection. I don't think we should trust to what they call pa.s.sion at all, Caroline. I believe it is a mere fire of dry sticks, blazing up and vanishing. But we watch him, and see him kind to animals, to little children, to poor people. He is kind to us likewise, good, considerate. He does not flatter women, but he is patient with them, and he seems to be easy in their presence, and to find their company genial. He likes them not only for vain and selfish reasons, but as we like him-because we like him. Then we observe that he is just, that he always speaks the truth, that he is conscientious. We feel joy and peace when he comes into a room; we feel sadness and trouble when he leaves it. We know that this man has been a kind son, that he is a kind brother. Will any one dare to tell me that he will not be a kind husband?"

"My uncle would affirm it unhesitatingly. 'He will be sick of you in a month,' he would say."