“Don’t you approve it, sir?”
“I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Reality out of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a minute.”
He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.
Chapter XXVIII Phoebe
Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the next morning she came down in one of her best moods.
“Who will take a walk with me?” she asked, after breakfast. “Isabella and Gertrude, will you?”
So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to her female cousins that they hesitated before they accepted it. Their mamma, however, signifying acquiescence in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and the trio set out.
It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together. Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies; indeed, she had a cordial pleasure in that of none except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She was civil, kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular morning, she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson. Without deviating from her wonted rule of discussing with them only ordinary themes, she imparted to these themes an extraordinary interest; the sparkle of her spirit glanced along her phrases.
What made her so joyous? All the cause must have been in herself. The day was not bright. It was dim – a pale, waning autumn day. The walks through the dun woods were damp; the atmosphere was heavy, the sky overcast; and yet it seemed that in Shirley’s heart lived all the light and azure of Italy, as all its fervour laughed in her gray English eye.
Some directions necessary to be given to her foreman, John, delayed her behind her cousins as they neared Fieldhead on their return. Perhaps an interval of twenty minutes elapsed between her separation from them and her re-entrance into the house. In the meantime she had spoken to John, and then she had lingered in the lane at the gate. A summons to luncheon called her in. She excused herself from the meal, and went upstairs.
“Is not Shirley coming to luncheon?” asked Isabella. “She said she was hungry.”
An hour after, as she did not quit her chamber, one of her cousins went to seek her there. She was found sitting at the foot of the bed, her head resting on her hand; she looked quite pale, very thoughtful, almost sad.
“You are not ill?” was the question put.
“A little sick,” replied Miss Keeldar.
Certainly she was not a little changed from what she had been two hours before.
This change, accounted for only by those three words, explained no otherwise; this change – whencesoever springing, effected in a brief ten minutes – passed like no light summer cloud. She talked when she joined her friends at dinner, talked as usual. She remained with them during the evening. When again questioned respecting her health, she declared herself perfectly recovered. It had been a mere passing faintness, a momentary sensation, not worth a thought; yet it was felt there was a difference in Shirley.
The next day – the day, the week, the fortnight after – this new and peculiar shadow lingered on the countenance, in the manner of Miss Keeldar. A strange quietude settled over her look, her movements, her very voice. The alteration was not so marked as to court or permit frequent questioning, yet it was there, and it would not pass away. It hung over her like a cloud which no breeze could stir or disperse. Soon it became evident that to notice this change was to annoy her. First she shrank from remark; and, if persisted in, she, with her own peculiar hauteur, repelled it. “Was she ill?” The reply came with decision.
“I am not.”
“Did anything weigh on her mind? Had anything happened to affect her spirits?”
She scornfully ridiculed the idea. “What did they mean by spirits? She had no spirits, black or white, blue or gray, to affect.”
“Something must be the matter – she was so altered.”
“She supposed she had a right to alter at her ease. She knew she was plainer. If it suited her to grow ugly, why need others fret themselves on the subject?”
“There must be a cause for the change. What was it?”
She peremptorily requested to be let alone.
Then she would make every effort to appear quite gay, and she seemed indignant at herself that she could not perfectly succeed. Brief self-spurning epithets burst from her lips when alone. “Fool! coward!” she would term herself. “Poltroon!” she would say, “if you must tremble, tremble in secret! Quail where no eye sees you!”
“How dare you,” she would ask herself—“how dare you show your weakness and betray your imbecile anxieties? Shake them off; rise above them. If you cannot do this, hide them.”
And to hide them she did her best. She once more became resolutely lively in company. When weary of effort and forced to relax, she sought solitude – not the solitude of her chamber (she refused to mope, shut up between four walls), but that wilder solitude which lies out of doors, and which she could chase, mounted on Zoë, her mare. She took long rides of half a day. Her uncle disapproved, but he dared not remonstrate. It was never pleasant to face Shirley’s anger, even when she was healthy and gay; but now that her face showed thin, and her large eye looked hollow, there was something in the darkening of that face and kindling of that eye which touched as well as alarmed.
To all comparative strangers who, unconscious of the alterations in her spirits, commented on the alteration in her looks, she had one reply,—
“I am perfectly well; I have not an ailment.”
And health, indeed, she must have had, to be able to bear the exposure to the weather she now encountered. Wet or fair, calm or storm, she took her daily ride over Stilbro’ Moor, Tartar keeping up at her side, with his wolf-like gallop, long and untiring.
Twice, three times, the eyes of gossips – those eyes which are everywhere, in the closet and on the hilltop – noticed that instead of turning on Rushedge, the top ridge of Stilbro’ Moor, she rode forwards all the way to the town. Scouts were not wanting to mark her destination there. It was ascertained that she alighted at the door of one Mr. Pearson Hall, a solicitor, related to the vicar of Nunnely. This gentleman and his ancestors had been the agents of the Keeldar family for generations back. Some people affirmed that Miss Keeldar was become involved in business speculations connected with Hollow’s Mill – that she had lost money, and was constrained to mortgage her land. Others conjectured that she was going to be married, and that the settlements were preparing.
Mr. Moore and Henry Sympson were together in the schoolroom. The tutor was waiting for a lesson which the pupil seemed busy in preparing.
“Henry, make haste. The afternoon is getting on.”
“Is it, sir?”
“Certainly. Are you nearly ready with that lesson?”
“No.”
“Not nearly ready?”
“I have not construed a line.”
Mr. Moore looked up. The boy’s tone was rather peculiar.
“The task presents no difficulties, Henry; or, if it does, bring them to me. We will work together.”
“Mr. Moore, I can do no work.”
“My boy, you are ill.”
“Sir, I am not worse in bodily health than usual, but my heart is full.”
“Shut the book. Come hither, Harry. Come to the fireside.”
Harry limped forward. His tutor placed him in a chair; his lips were quivering, his eyes brimming. He laid his crutch on the floor, bent down his head, and wept.
“This distress is not occasioned by physical pain, you say, Harry? You have a grief; tell it me.”
“Sir, I have such a grief as I never had before. I wish it could be relieved in some way; I can hardly bear it.”
“Who knows but, if we talk it over, we may relieve it? What is the cause? Whom does it concern?”
“The cause, sir, is Shirley; it concerns Shirley.”
“Does it? You think her changed?”