“Don’t you? I thought not. Imagine Robert’s clear-cut, handsome face looking over my shoulder. Does not the apparition make vividly manifest the obtuse mould of my heavy traits? There!” (he started), “I have been expecting that wire to vibrate this last half-hour.”
The dinner-bell rang, and Shirley rose.
“Mr. Moore,” she said, as she gathered up her silks, “have you heard from your brother lately? Do you know what he means by staying in town so long? Does he talk of returning?”
“He talks of returning; but what has caused his long absence I cannot tell. To speak the truth, I thought none in Yorkshire knew better than yourself why he was reluctant to come home.”
A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar’s cheek.
“Write to him and urge him to come,” she said. “I know there has been no impolicy in protracting his absence thus far. It is good to let the mill stand, while trade is so bad; but he must not abandon the county.”
“I am aware,” said Louis, “that he had an interview with you the evening before he left, and I saw him quit Fieldhead afterwards. I read his countenance, or tried to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he would be long away. Some fine, slight fingers have a wondrous knack at pulverizing a man’s brittle pride. I suppose Robert put too much trust in his manly beauty and native gentlemanhood. Those are better off who, being destitute of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write, and say you advise his return.”
“Do not say I advise his return, but that his return is advisable.”
The second bell rang, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.
Chapter XXIX Louis Moore
Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently.
How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore – Miss Keeldar, the whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry – are gone to Nunnely. Sir Philip would have them come; he wished to make them acquainted with his mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as the baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him tonight; but not the boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother, nor his patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.
This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for his goddess tonight. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for tonight she welcomes Aeolus.
Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar round the other gable and along the hall-front. This end was sheltered. He wanted no shelter; he desired no subdued sounds or screened position.
“All the parlours are empty,” said he. “I am sick at heart of this cell.”
He left it, and went where the casements, larger and freer than the branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and sweeping vision of the autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon shone on every floor and wall.
Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and polished, and fireless like the salon. The hearth is hot and ruddy; the cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug is a little worktable, a desk upon it, a chair near it.
Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so, could you see him standing before it. There is as much interest now in his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household solitude he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it.
He makes discoveries. A bag – a small satin bag – hangs on the chair-back. The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen, a crimson berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean, delicate glove – these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand they strew. Order forbids details in a picture – she puts them tidily away; but details give charm.
Moore spoke.
“Her mark,” he said. “Here she has been – careless, attractive thing! – called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints? Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand never settles in displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had trickled a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss. Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering? soliloquizing? Stop that.”
He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for his evening’s comfort.
He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut out sovereign and court and starry armies; he added fuel to the hot but fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the table; he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand; and then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small, thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in a cramp, compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy. Stoop over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he scribbles.
“It is nine o’clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room, sit opposite her chair, rest my elbow on her table, have her little mementoes about me.
“I used rather to like Solitude – to fancy her a somewhat quiet and serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone mountain passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart easier when I held her to it – all mute, but majestic.
“Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me, asked my protection, appealed to my strength – since that hour I abhor Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and mate of Death!
“It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil I can say to it what I will – say what I dare utter to nothing living – say what I dare not think aloud.
“We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when I was alone in the drawing room, seeking a book of Henry’s, she entered, dressed for a concert at Stilbro.’ Shyness – her shyness, not mine – drew a silver veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read about ‘maiden modesty,’ but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words are good and appropriate words. As she passed to the window, after tacitly but gracefully recognizing me, I could call her nothing in my own mind save ‘stainless virgin.’ To my perception, a delicate splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be the most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in truth that shyness of hers touched me exquisitely; it flattered my finest sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive with a life of Paradise, as she turned her glance from my glance, and softly averted her head to hide the suffusion of her cheek.