Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (have you read this book .TXT) 📕

are good they are the lords of the creation—they are the sons of God. Moulded in their Maker's image, the minutest spark of His spirit lifts them almost above mortality. Indisputably, a great, good, handsome man is the first of created things."

[Pg 190]"Above us?"

"I would scorn to contend for empire with him—I would scorn it. Shall my left hand dispute for precedence with my right? Shall my heart quarrel with my pulse? Shall my veins be jealous of the blood which fills them?"

"Men and women, husbands and wives, quarrel horribly, Shirley."

"Poor things! Poor, fallen, degenerate things! God made them for another lot, for other feelings."

"But are we men's equals, or are we not?"

"Nothing ever charms me more than when I meet my superior—one who makes me sincerely feel that he is my superior."

"Did you ever meet him?"

"I should be glad to see him any day. The higher above me, so much the better. It degrades to stoop; it is glorious to look up. What frets me is, that when I try to esteem, I am baffled; when religiously inclined, there are but false gods to adore. I disdain to be a pagan."

"Miss Keeldar, will you come in? We are here at the rectory gates."

"Not to-day, but to-morrow I shall fetch you to spend the evening with me. Caroline Helstone, if you really are what at present to me you seem, you and I will suit. I have never in my whole life been able to talk to a young lady as I have talked to you this morning. Kiss me—and good-bye."

Mrs. Pryor seemed as well disposed to cultivate Caroline's acquaintance as Shirley. She, who went nowhere else, called on an early day at the rectory. She came in the afternoon, when the rector happened to be out. It was rather a close day; the heat of the weather had flushed her, and she seemed fluttered too by the circumstance of entering a strange house, for it appeared her habits were most retiring and secluded. When Miss Helstone went to her in the dining-room she found her seated on the sofa, trembling, fanning herself with her handkerchief, and seeming to contend with a nervous discomposure that threatened to become hysterical.

Caroline marvelled somewhat at this unusual want of self-command in a lady of her years, and also at the lack of real strength in one who appeared almost robust—for Mrs. Pryor hastened to allege the fatigue of her walk, the[Pg 191] heat of the sun, etc., as reasons for her temporary indisposition; and still as, with more hurry than coherence, she again and again enumerated these causes of exhaustion, Caroline gently sought to relieve her by opening her shawl and removing her bonnet. Attentions of this sort Mrs. Pryor would not have accepted from every one. In general she recoiled from touch or close approach with a mixture of embarrassment and coldness far from flattering to those who offered her aid. To Miss Helstone's little light hand, however, she yielded tractably, and seemed soothed by its contact. In a few minutes she ceased to tremble, and grew quiet and tranquil.

Her usual manner being resumed, she proceeded to talk of ordinary topics. In a miscellaneous company Mrs. Pryor rarely opened her lips, or, if obliged to speak, she spoke under restraint, and consequently not well; in dialogue she was a good converser. Her language, always a little formal, was well chosen; her sentiments were just; her information was varied and correct. Caroline felt it pleasant to listen to her, more pleasant than she could have anticipated.

On the wall opposite the sofa where they sat hung three pictures—the centre one, above the mantelpiece, that of a lady; the two others, male portraits.

"That is a beautiful face," said Mrs. Pryor, interrupting a brief pause which had followed half an hour's animated conversation. "The features may be termed perfect; no statuary's chisel could improve them. It is a portrait from the life, I presume?"

"It is a portrait of Mrs. Helstone."

"Of Mrs. Matthewson Helstone? Of your uncle's wife?"

"It is, and is said to be a good likeness. Before her marriage she was accounted the beauty of the district."

"I should say she merited the distinction. What accuracy in all the lineaments! It is, however, a passive face. The original could not have been what is generally termed 'a woman of spirit.'"

"I believe she was a remarkably still, silent person."

"One would scarcely have expected, my dear, that your uncle's choice should have fallen on a partner of that description. Is he not fond of being amused by lively chat?"

"In company he is. But he always says he could never do with a talking wife. He must have quiet at home.[Pg 192] You go out to gossip, he affirms; you come home to read and reflect."

"Mrs. Matthewson lived but a few years after her marriage, I think I have heard?"

"About five years."

"Well, my dear," pursued Mrs. Pryor, rising to go, "I trust it is understood that you will frequently come to Fieldhead. I hope you will. You must feel lonely here, having no female relative in the house; you must necessarily pass much of your time in solitude."

"I am inured to it. I have grown up by myself. May I arrange your shawl for you?"

Mrs. Pryor submitted to be assisted.

"Should you chance to require help in your studies," she said, "you may command me."

Caroline expressed her sense of such kindness.

"I hope to have frequent conversations with you. I should wish to be of use to you."

Again Miss Helstone returned thanks. She thought what a kind heart was hidden under her visitor's seeming chilliness. Observing that Mrs. Pryor again glanced with an air of interest towards the portraits, as she walked down the room, Caroline casually explained: "The likeness that hangs near the window, you will see, is my uncle, taken twenty years ago; the other, to the left of the mantelpiece, is his brother James, my father."

"They resemble each other in some measure," said Mrs. Pryor; "yet a difference of character may be traced in the different mould of the brow and mouth."

"What difference?" inquired Caroline, accompanying her to the door. "James Helstone—that is, my father—is generally considered the best-looking of the two. Strangers, I remark, always exclaim, 'What a handsome man!' Do you think his picture handsome, Mrs. Pryor?"

"It is much softer or finer featured than that of your uncle."

"But where or what is the difference of character to which you alluded? Tell me. I wish to see if you guess right."

"My dear, your uncle is a man of principle. His forehead and his lips are firm, and his eye is steady."

"Well, and the other? Do not be afraid of offending me. I always like the truth."

"Do you like the truth? It is well for you. Adhere[Pg 193] to that preference—never swerve thence. The other, my dear, if he had been living now, would probably have furnished little support to his daughter. It is, however, a graceful head—taken in youth, I should think. My dear" (turning abruptly), "you acknowledge an inestimable value in principle?"

"I am sure no character can have true worth without it."

"You feel what you say? You have considered the subject?"

"Often. Circumstances early forced it upon my attention."

"The lesson was not lost, then, though it came so prematurely. I suppose the soil is not light nor stony, otherwise seed falling in that season never would have borne fruit. My dear, do not stand in the air of the door; you will take cold. Good-afternoon."

Miss Helstone's new acquaintance soon became of value to her: their society was acknowledged a privilege. She found she would have been in error indeed to have let slip this chance of relief, to have neglected to avail herself of this happy change. A turn was thereby given to her thoughts; a new channel was opened for them, which, diverting a few of them at least from the one direction in which all had hitherto tended, abated the impetuosity of their rush, and lessened the force of their pressure on one worn-down point.

Soon she was content to spend whole days at Fieldhead, doing by turns whatever Shirley or Mrs. Pryor wished her to do; and now one would claim her, now the other. Nothing could be less demonstrative than the friendship of the elder lady, but also nothing could be more vigilant, assiduous, untiring. I have intimated that she was a peculiar personage, and in nothing was her peculiarity more shown than in the nature of the interest she evinced for Caroline. She watched all her movements; she seemed as if she would have guarded all her steps. It gave her pleasure to be applied to by Miss Helstone for advice and assistance. She yielded her aid, when asked, with such quiet yet obvious enjoyment that Caroline ere long took delight in depending on her.

Shirley Keeldar's complete docility with Mrs. Pryor had at first surprised Miss Helstone, and not less the fact of the reserved ex-governess being so much at home and at ease in the residence of her young pupil, where she filled with[Pg 194] such quiet independency a very dependent post; but she soon found that it needed but to know both ladies to comprehend fully the enigma. Every one, it seemed to her, must like, must love, must prize Mrs. Pryor when they knew her. No matter that she perseveringly wore old-fashioned gowns; that her speech was formal and her manner cool; that she had twenty little ways such as nobody else had: she was still such a stay, such a counsellor, so truthful, so kind in her way, that, in Caroline's idea, none once accustomed to her presence could easily afford to dispense with it.

As to dependency or humiliation, Caroline did not feel it in her intercourse with Shirley, and why should Mrs. Pryor? The heiress was rich—very rich—compared with her new friend: one possessed a clear thousand a year, the other not a penny; and yet there was a safe sense of equality experienced in her society, never known in that of the ordinary Briarfield and Whinbury gentry.

The reason was, Shirley's head ran on other things than money and position. She was glad to be independent as to property; by fits she was even elated at the notion of being lady of the manor, and having tenants and an estate. She was especially tickled with an agreeable complacency when reminded of "all that property" down in the Hollow, "comprising an excellent cloth-mill, dyehouse, warehouse, together with the messuage, gardens, and outbuildings, termed Hollow's Cottage;" but her exultation being quite undisguised was singularly inoffensive; and, for her serious thoughts, they tended elsewhere. To admire the great, reverence the good, and be joyous with the genial, was very much the bent of Shirley's soul: she mused, therefore, on the means of following this bent far oftener than she pondered on her social superiority.

In Caroline Miss Keeldar had first taken an interest because she was quiet, retiring, looked delicate, and seemed as if she needed some one to take care of her. Her predilection increased greatly when she discovered that her own way of thinking and talking was understood and responded to by this new acquaintance. She had hardly expected it. Miss Helstone, she fancied, had too pretty a face, manners and voice too soft, to be anything out of the common way in mind and attainments; and she very much wondered to see the gentle features light up archly to the reveille of a dry sally or two risked by herself; and more[Pg 195] did she wonder to discover the self-won knowledge treasured, and the untaught speculations working in that girlish, curl-veiled head. Caroline's instinct of taste, too, was like her own. Such books as Miss Keeldar had read with the most pleasure were Miss Helstone's delight also. They held many aversions too in common, and could have the comfort of laughing together over works of false sentimentality and pompous pretension.

Few, Shirley conceived, men or women have the right taste in poetry, the right sense for discriminating between what is real and what is false. She had again and again heard very clever people pronounce this or that passage, in this or that versifier, altogether admirable, which, when she read, her soul refused to acknowledge as anything but cant, flourish, and tinsel, or at the best elaborate wordiness, curious, clever, learned, perhaps, haply even tinged with the fascinating hues of fancy, but, God knows, as different from real poetry as the gorgeous and massy vase of mosaic is from the little cup of pure metal; or, to give the reader a choice of similes, as the milliner's artificial wreath is from the fresh-gathered lily of the field.

Caroline, she found, felt the value of the true ore, and knew the deception of the flashy dross. The minds of the two girls being toned in harmony often chimed very sweetly together.

One evening they chanced to be alone in the oak-parlour. They had passed a long wet day together