Shirley Part 67

Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic worship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics. He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the h.o.a.ry church and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his tenantry about him in his ancestral halls.

Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter, and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory.

He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last. He said-when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood-that under no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the ma.s.sive oak beams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest dwelling enough compared with his own, but he liked it.

Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; he must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the still waters. Tete-a-tete ramblings she shunned, so he made parties for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter scenes-woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire.

Such a.s.siduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle's prophetic soul antic.i.p.ated a splendid future. He already scented the time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his "nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a mad girl," but a "most sensible woman."415 He termed her, in confidential dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; peculiar, but very clever." He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himself headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. He would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personage not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any "midden-c.o.c.k on pattens."

His niece viewed his manuvres and received his innuendoes with phlegm; apparently she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended. When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had never thought a man of rank-the only son of a proud, fond mother, the only brother of doting sisters-could have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much sense.

Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence more and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had become to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of expectancy that kept the nerves strained.

One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne, that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coa.r.s.e, and his manners vulgar. There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond her claims.

His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though not ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features were plain and slight, his hair sandy,416 his stature insignificant. But she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the proportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his unfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no irony save her own.

In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.

"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."

"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was new to him.

"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for she liked him."

"As a neighbour?"

"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."

"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous-contemptible?"

"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival-a puling slip of aristocracy-I am quite agreeable. At his age, in his place, with his inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor duke, nor prince should have s.n.a.t.c.hed my sweetheart from me without a struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like speaking to a parson to consult with you."

Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it417 appeared she was not absolutely spoiled-that her better nature did not quite leave her. Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion of the absentee; but that she had not quite forgotten him-that she still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest-seemed proved by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool reserve and docile respect-now sweeping past him in all the dignity of the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors; bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to inflict penalties in case of contumacy.

Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.

He lay tossing on his th.o.r.n.y bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap-too light to be that of Mrs. Gill or the housemaid-summoned young Sympson to the door.

"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery.

"Come in and see him yourself."

"Is he asleep?"

"I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."

"He would not like it."

But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.

The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet it revealed her in elegant attire. There was a party a.s.sembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room, and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold circling her throat and quivering on her breast,418 glistened strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive. She spoke gently.

"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"

"I have not been very ill, and am now better."

"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes; can you taste one?"

"No; but I thank you for remembering me."

"Just one."

From the rich cl.u.s.ter that filled a small basket held in her hand she severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face.

"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit; yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?"

"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best."

Silence fell for some minutes.

"Do you suffer?-have you pain?"

"Very little."

"What made you ill?"

Silence.

"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?"

"Miasma, perhaps-malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers."

"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise."

"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is infectious. I scarcely fear"-with a sort of smile-"you will take it; but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."

"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you before I depart-any little service--"

"They will miss you below."

"No; the gentlemen are still at table."

"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I hear him just now pa.s.s from the dining-room to the drawing-room."

"It is a servant."

"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."