Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous vote against her.
“You must go,” said Mr. Hall, “and behave courteously too. You owe many duties to society. It is not permitted you to please only yourself.”
Louis Moore assented with a low “Hear, hear!”
Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave to her attire a less artistic and more domestic grace, and Shirley was put out of the room, protesting still, by a pouting lip, against her dismissal.
“There is a curious charm about her,” observed Mr. Hall, when she was gone. “And now,” he added, “I must away; for Sweeting is off to see his mother, and there are two funerals.”
“Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time,” said Moore, sitting down to his desk.
“A curious charm!” repeated the pupil, when he and his master were left alone. “True. Is she not a kind of white witch?” he asked.
“Of whom are you speaking, sir?”
“Of my cousin Shirley.”
“No irrelevant questions; study in silence.”
Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly – sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was a rare one with his tutor; but when it came he had an awe of it. He obeyed.
Chapter XXVII The First Bluestocking
Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that never had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic.
Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiously desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match, give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her forever.
The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreed on the meaning of the words “suitable” and “proper.” She never yet had accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most important step of her life, she would consent to accept it.
The trial soon came.
Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.
“Decidedly suitable! most proper!” pronounced Mr. Sympson. “A fine unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. It must be done!”
He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed her consent.
It was withheld.
“No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.”
“I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you.”
She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
“And I ask in what sense that young man is worthy of me?”
“He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections, equal respectability.”
“Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to love him.”
“Please to state your objections.”
“He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him.”
“Miss Keeldar, you shock me!”
“That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second stumbling block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar.”
“The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on your part.”
“I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!”
“Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?”
“I deny your right to claim an answer to that question.”
“May I ask if you expect some man of title – some peer of the realm – to demand your hand?”
“I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it.”
“Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy.”
“Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it.”
“I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a mésalliance!”
“Our name! Am I called Sympson?”
“God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be trifled with!”
“What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?”
“Take care! take care!” warning her with voice and hand that trembled alike.
“Why? What shadow of power have you over me? Why should I fear you?”
“Take care, madam!”
“Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved to esteem – to admire – to love.”
“Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!”
“To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not.”
“And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?”
“On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable.”
“On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or – or”
“Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?”
“Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist.”
“For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro’ grammar school!”
“Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?” He lifted hands and eyes.
“Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne.”
“To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?”
“Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you could not compel me to this step. I will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble on the subject.”
Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar – or her fortune – had by this time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne’s, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.
Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family tranquillized.
The village of Nunnely has been alluded to – its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory – an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and what is more, it had its man of title – its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession – its proudest and most prized – had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate.
During Miss Keeldar’s stay at the fashionable watering place of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the place. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending – too simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not condescend to their society; he seemed glad of it.