Miss Helstone knew these girls liked her, yet she was shy even with them out of school. They were not more in awe of her than she of them. She drew near them now, rather to find protection in their company than to patronize them with her presence. By some instinct they knew her weakness, and with natural politeness they respected it. Her knowledge commanded their esteem when she taught them; her gentleness attracted their regard; and because she was what they considered wise and good when on duty, they kindly overlooked her evident timidity when off. They did not take advantage of it. Peasant girls as they were, they had too much of our own English sensibility to be guilty of the coarse error. They stood round her still, civil, friendly, receiving her slight smiles and rather hurried efforts to converse with a good feeling and good breeding – the last quality being the result of the first – which soon set her at her ease.
Mr. Sam Wynne coming up with great haste, to insist on the elder girls joining in the game as well as the younger ones, Caroline was again left alone. She was meditating a quiet retreat to the house, when Shirley, perceiving from afar her isolation, hastened to her side.
“Let us go to the top of the fields,” she said. “I know you don’t like crowds, Caroline.”
“But it will be depriving you of a pleasure, Shirley, to take you from all these fine people, who court your society so assiduously, and to whom you can, without art or effort, make yourself so pleasant.”
“Not quite without effort; I am already tired of the exertion. It is but insipid, barren work, talking and laughing with the good gentlefolks of Briarfield. I have been looking out for your white dress for the last ten minutes. I like to watch those I love in a crowd, and to compare them with others. I have thus compared you. You resemble none of the rest, Lina. There are some prettier faces than yours here. You are not a model beauty like Harriet Sykes, for instance – beside her your person appears almost insignificant – but you look agreeable, you look reflective, you look what I call interesting.”
“Hush, Shirley! you flatter me.”
“I don’t wonder that your scholars like you.”
“Nonsense, Shirley! Talk of something else.”
“We will talk of Moore, then, and we will watch him. I see him even now.”
“Where?” And as Caroline asked the question she looked not over the fields, but into Miss Keeldar’s eyes, as was her wont whenever Shirley mentioned any object she descried afar. Her friend had quicker vision than herself, and Caroline seemed to think that the secret of her eagle acuteness might be read in her dark gray irides, or rather, perhaps, she only sought guidance by the direction of those discriminating and brilliant spheres.
“There is Moore,” said Shirley, pointing right across the wide field where a thousand children were playing, and now nearly a thousand adult spectators walking about. “There – can you miss the tall stature and straight port? He looks amidst the set that surround him like Eliab amongst humbler shepherds – like Saul in a war council; and a war council it is, if I am not mistaken.”
“Why so, Shirley?” asked Caroline, whose eye had at last caught the object it sought. “Robert is just now speaking to my uncle, and they are shaking hands. They are then reconciled.”
“Reconciled not without good reason, depend on it – making common cause against some common foe. And why, think you, are Messrs. Wynne and Sykes, and Armitage and Ramsden, gathered in such a close circle round them? And why is Malone beckoned to join them? Where he is summoned, be sure a strong arm is needed.”
Shirley, as she watched, grew restless; her eyes flashed.
“They won’t trust me,” she said. “That is always the way when it comes to the point.”
“What about?”
“Cannot you feel? There is some mystery afloat; some event is expected; some preparation is to be made, I am certain. I saw it all in Mr. Moore’s manner this evening. He was excited, yet hard.”
“Hard to you, Shirley?”
“Yes, to me. He often is hard to me. We seldom converse tête-à-tête but I am made to feel that the basis of his character is not of eider down.”
“Yet he seemed to talk to you softly.”
“Did he not? Very gentle tones and quiet manner. Yet the man is peremptory and secret: his secrecy vexes me.”
“Yes, Robert is secret.”
“Which he has scarcely a right to be with me, especially as he commenced by giving me his confidence. Having done nothing to forfeit that confidence, it ought not to be withdrawn; but I suppose I am not considered iron-souled enough to be trusted in a crisis.”
“He fears, probably, to occasion you uneasiness.”
“An unnecessary precaution. I am of elastic materials, not soon crushed. He ought to know that. But the man is proud. He has his faults, say what you will, Lina. Observe how engaged that group appear. They do not know we are watching them.”
“If we keep on the alert, Shirley, we shall perhaps find the clue to their secret.”
“There will be some unusual movements ere long – perhaps tomorrow, possibly tonight. But my eyes and ears are wide open. Mr. Moore, you shall be under surveillance. Be you vigilant also, Lina.”
“I will. Robert is going; I saw him turn. I believe he noticed us. They are shaking hands.”
“Shaking hands, with emphasis,” added Shirley, “as if they were ratifying some solemn league and covenant.”
They saw Robert quit the group, pass through a gate, and disappear.
“And he has not bid us good-bye,” murmured Caroline.
Scarcely had the words escaped her lips when she tried by a smile to deny the confession of disappointment they seemed to imply. An unbidden suffusion for one moment both softened and brightened her eyes.
“Oh, that is soon remedied!” exclaimed Shirley: “we’ll make him bid us good-bye.”
“Make him! That is not the same thing,” was the answer.
“It shall be the same thing.”
“But he is gone; you can’t overtake him.”
“I know a shorter way than that he has taken. We will intercept him.”
“But, Shirley, I would rather not go.”
Caroline said this as Miss Keeldar seized her arm and hurried her down the fields. It was vain to contend. Nothing was so wilful as Shirley when she took a whim into her head. Caroline found herself out of sight of the crowd almost before she was aware, and ushered into a narrow shady spot, embowered above with hawthorns, and enamelled under foot with daisies. She took no notice of the evening sun chequering the turf, nor was she sensible of the pure incense exhaling at this hour from tree and plant; she only heard the wicket opening at one end, and knew Robert was approaching. The long sprays of the hawthorns, shooting out before them, served as a screen. They saw him before he observed them. At a glance Caroline perceived that his social hilarity was gone; he had left it behind him in the joy-echoing fields round the school. What remained now was his dark, quiet, business countenance. As Shirley had said, a certain hardness characterized his air, while his eye was excited, but austere. So much the worse timed was the present freak of Shirley’s. If he had looked disposed for holiday mirth, it would not have mattered much; but now—
“I told you not to come,” said Caroline, somewhat bitterly, to her friend. She seemed truly perturbed. To be intruded on Robert thus, against her will and his expectation, and when he evidently would rather not be delayed, keenly annoyed her. It did not annoy Miss Keeldar in the least. She stepped forward and faced her tenant, barring his way. “You omitted to bid us good-bye,” she said.
“Omitted to bid you good-bye! Where did you come from? Are you fairies? I left two like you, one in purple and one in white, standing at the top of a bank, four fields off, but a minute ago.”