Shirley, Charlotte Brontë [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

are you two about,” she continued, “ransacking Mr. Moore’s desk?”

“Looking at your old copybooks,” returned Caroline.

“My old copybooks?”

“French exercise-books. Look here! They must be held precious; they are kept carefully.”

She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. “Did not know one was in existence,” she said. “I thought the whole lot had long since lit the kitchen fire, or curled the maid’s hair at Sympson Grove.⁠—What made you keep them, Henry?”

“It is not my doing. I should not have thought of it. It never entered my head to suppose copybooks of value. Mr. Moore put them by in the inner drawer of his desk. Perhaps he forgot them.”

“C’est cela. He forgot them, no doubt,” echoed Shirley. “They are extremely well written,” she observed complacently.

“What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days! I remember you so well. A slim, light creature whom, though you were so tall, I could lift off the floor. I see you with your long, countless curls on your shoulders, and your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore lively⁠—that is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while.”

Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing. Presently she observed, “That was written one winter afternoon. It was a description of a snow scene.”

“I remember,” said Henry. “Mr. Moore, when he read it, cried, ‘Voilà le Français gagné!’ He said it was well done. Afterwards you made him draw, in sepia, the landscape you described.”

“You have not forgotten, then, Hal?”

“Not at all. We were all scolded that day for not coming down to tea when called. I can remember my tutor sitting at his easel, and you standing behind him, holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy cliff, the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon hung above.”

“Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see them.”

“In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key.”

“Ask him for it when he comes in.”

“You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now. You are grown a proud lady to him; I notice that.”

“Shirley, you are a real enigma,” whispered Caroline in her ear. “What queer discoveries I make day by day now!⁠—I who thought I had your confidence. Inexplicable creature! even this boy reproves you.”

“I have forgotten ‘auld lang syne,’ you see, Harry,” said Miss Keeldar, answering young Sympson, and not heeding Caroline.

“Which you never should have done. You don’t deserve to be a man’s morning star if you have so short a memory.”

“A man’s morning star, indeed! and by ‘a man’ is meant your worshipful self, I suppose? Come, drink your new milk while it is warm.”

The young cripple rose and limped towards the fire; he had left his crutch near the mantelpiece.

“My poor lame darling!” murmured Shirley, in her softest voice, aiding him.

“Whether do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best, Shirley?” inquired the boy, as she settled him in an armchair.

“O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet.”

“Me or Mr. Malone?”

“You again, a thousand times.”

“Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet high each.”

“Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be anything more than a little pale lameter.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You need not be sorrowful. Have I not often told you who was almost as little, as pale, as suffering as you, and yet potent as a giant and brave as a lion?”

“Admiral Horatio?”

“Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Duke of Brontë; great at heart as a Titan; gallant and heroic as all the world and age of chivalry; leader of the might of England; commander of her strength on the deep; hurler of her thunder over the flood.”

“A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet my mind is so restless I burn day and night⁠—for what I can hardly tell⁠—to be⁠—to do⁠—to suffer, I think.”

“Harry, it is your mind, which is stronger and older than your frame, that troubles you. It is a captive; it lies in physical bondage. But it will work its own redemption yet. Study carefully not only books but the world. You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient⁠—wait the course of time. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but if you live you will be⁠—listen to my prophecy⁠—you will be an author, perhaps a poet.”

“An author! It is a flash⁠—a flash of light to me! I will⁠—I will! I’ll write a book that I may dedicate it to you.”

“You will write it that you may give your soul its natural release. Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand, I believe, or can make good. Here, Hal⁠—here is your toasted oatcake; eat and live!”

“Willingly!” here cried a voice outside the open window. “I know that fragrance of meal bread. Miss Keeldar, may I come in and partake?”

“Mr. Hall”⁠—it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from their walk⁠—“there is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room and there are proper people seated round it. You may join that society and share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here, and do as we do.”

“I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself to be led by the nose,” returned Mr. Hall, who presently entered, accompanied by Louis Moore. That gentleman’s eye fell on his desk, pillaged.

“Burglars!” said he.⁠—“Henry, you merit the ferule.”

“Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it,” was alleged, with more attention to effect than truth.

“Traitor and false witness!” cried both the girls. “We never laid hands on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!”

“Exactly so,” said Moore, with his rare smile. “And what have you ferreted out, in your ‘spirit of laudable inquiry’?”

He perceived the inner drawer open.

“This is empty,” said he. “Who has taken⁠—”

“Here, here!” Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little packet to its place. He shut it up; he locked it in with a small key attached to his watch-guard; he restored the