Shirley Part 38

"It is not, at any rate, that of my uncle and Dr. Boultby," returned Caroline, smiling. She always felt a sort of shy pleasure in following Miss Keeldar's lead respecting the discussion of her cousin's character. Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when invited, the temptation of talking about him of whom she was ever thinking was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what it is, for I never watched Robert in my life but my scrutiny was presently baffled by finding he was watching me."

"There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "You can't fix your eyes on him but his presently flash on you. He is never off his guard. He won't give you an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, his thoughts seem to be busy amongst your own thoughts, tracing your words and actions to their source, contemplating your motives at his ease. Oh! I know that sort of character, or something in the same style. It is one that piques me singularly. How does it affect you?"

This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp,240 sudden turns. Caroline used to be fluttered by them at first, but she had now got into the way of parrying these home-thrusts like a little Quakeress.

"Pique you? In what way does it pique you?" she said.

"Here he comes!" suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking off, starting up and running to the window. "Here comes a diversion. I never told you of a superb conquest I have made lately-made at those parties to which I can never persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been done without effort or intention on my part-that I aver. There is the bell-and, by all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they never hunt, then, except in couples? You may have one, Lina, and you may take your choice. I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!"

The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was seen in the chapter which first introduced its mistress to the reader, here gave tongue in the hall, amidst whose hollow s.p.a.ce the deep bark resounded formidably. A growl more terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder, succeeded.

"Listen!" again cried Shirley, laughing. "You would think that the prelude to a b.l.o.o.d.y onslaught. They will be frightened. They don't know old Tartar as I do. They are not aware his uproars are all sound and fury, signifying nothing!"

Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane or whip. Immediately there was a yell-a scutter-a run-a positive tumult.

"O Malone, Malone!"

"Down! down! down!" cried the high voice.

"He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him. A blow is what he is not used to, and will not take."

Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot haste; another was backing fast to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time reiterating, "Down! down! down!" while the tawny dog bayed, bellowed, howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door241 against his fellow-nothing so merciless as terror. But the other fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield to his strength.

"Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones, "spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at Tartar; he won't harm a cat."

She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and John-the man who fed him-but was mostly indifferent to the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.

"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."

"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and leaning over the ma.s.sive bal.u.s.trade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to rea.s.sure him."

"It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.-John" (turning to her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.-Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs are slippery."

In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure creak again.

Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted eclat, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he pa.s.sed him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone;242 he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe her to death.

However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too true a lady to smile even at any one under mortification. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed-for Shirley had looks and tones that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently very civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that pa.s.sage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.

For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat,-not on the sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarra.s.sed. He talked to the ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere he opened his mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in narrower compa.s.s; he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his throat-his head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had an inventive, an original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that att.i.tude, he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together.243 It was evident he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside, that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point in Peter's demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of his homage from herself to the heiress. The 5,000 he supposed her likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful management.

From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to descend. At length, however, that gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused-not a whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is insensible to shame. He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make colour mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no modesty in his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the commonplace-conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about the business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion was, when he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be master of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an impertinent, injured tone-"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder you should keep such an animal."

244"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am very fond of him."

"I should say you are not serious in the a.s.sertion. Can't fancy a lady fond of that brute-'tis so ugly-a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him."

"Hang what I am fond of!"

"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle-something appropriate to the fair s.e.x. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."

"Perhaps I am an exception."

"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That is universally allowed."

"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any harm."

"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When I sor him" (such was Mr. Donne's p.r.o.nunciation) "about to spring, I thought I should have fainted."

"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."

"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the enemy."

"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"

"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been a.s.sured of this, I would have remained all day in the chamber. But what is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"

And indeed Tartar walked past the gla.s.s door opening to the garden, stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour. He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry.

"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the pavement towards the gate, bellowing avec explosion. His mistress quietly opened the gla.s.s door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt, stupid head to the new callers to be patted.

245"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you know us? Good-morning, old boy!"

And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were harmless, and might be allowed to pa.s.s, he withdrew to the sunny front of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was only his mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all others he showed himself obstinately insensible.

Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with them cordially. They were come to tell her of certain successes they had achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr. Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who was come, ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.

Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day; the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets. Both of them looked pretty-one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the profusely blooming flowers whose perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling her to choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.

Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun. Donne was not grateful-he never was grateful for kindness and attention-but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted246 them with native awkwardness. Malone seemed specially at a loss, when a bouquet filled one hand, while his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank you!" was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of sounds, implying that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into his b.u.t.tonhole.

As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning him apart, gave him some commission, which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he flew, round by the courtyard to the kitchen. No need to give him directions; he was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared, carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and bowers in the grounds, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid-Miss Keeldar kept no footman-came out, bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's nimble fingers aided in disposing gla.s.ses, plates, knives, and forks; he a.s.sisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting of cold chicken, ham, and tarts.

This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight to offer any chance guests; and nothing pleased her better than to have an alert, obliging little friend, like Sweeting, to run about her hand, cheerily receive and briskly execute her hospitable hints. David and she were on the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes.

The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone, indeed, contributed but little to its vivacity, the chief part they played in it being what concerned the knife, fork, and wine-gla.s.s; but where four such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were a.s.sembled in health and amity, on a green lawn, under a sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be ungenial dullness.

In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united Sunday-school tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield, Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at her post as teacher,247 he said, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be wanting. He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of this sort. She liked festive excitement, a gathering of happiness, a concentration and combination of pleasant details, a throng of glad faces, a muster of elated hearts. She told Mr. Hall they might count on her with security. She did not know what she would have to do, but they might dispose of her as they pleased.

"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to my table, and to sit near me, Mr. Hall?"

"I shall not fail, Deo volente," said he.-"I have occupied the place on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six years," he proceeded, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not particularly self-confident by nature, as you may have observed; and the first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is, and make tea in public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the speechless panic, the cups shaking in the little hand, and the overflowing teapot filled too full from the urn. I came to her aid, took a seat near her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made the tea for her like any old woman."

"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.

"You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well, inasmuch as it was not like the majority of little ladies of twelve, whom you may help and caress for ever without their evincing any quicker sense of the kindness done and meant than if they were made of wax and wood instead of flesh and nerves.-She kept close to me, Miss Keeldar, the rest of the evening, walking with me over the grounds where the children were playing; she followed me into the vestry when all were summoned into church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to the pulpit, had I not taken the previous precaution of conducting her to the rectory pew."

"And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline.